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THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND  ^ 


TEXTBOOK  EDITION 


THE  CHRONICLES 
OF  AMERICA  SERIES 
ALLEN  JOHNSON 
EDITOR 

GERHARD  R.  LOMER 
CHARLES  W.  JEFFERYS 
ASSISTANT  EDITORS 


THE  1.IBB4RY 
Of  THE 
UNIVEBSITir  OF  liuum 


THE  FATHERS  OF 
NEW  ENGLAND 


A  CHRONICLE  OF  THE 
PURITAN  COMMONWEALTHS 
BY  CHARLES  M.  ANDREWS 


NEW  HAVEN:  YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
TORONTO:  GLASGOW.  BROOK  &  CO. 
LONDON:   HUMPHREY  MILPORD 
OXFORD    UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1921 


Copyright,  1919,  by  Yale  University  Press 


c-^^^      REMOTE  srronA' 

V.  4  ccnp'^        B00KSTACK3  0.  • 
CONTENTS 

I.    THE  COMING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS              Page  1 

II.    THE  BAY  COLONY                                       "  21 

IIL    COMPLETING  THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT   "  45 

IV.    EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE                       "  72 

V.  AN  ATTEMPT  AT  COLONIAL  UNION             "  88 

VI.  WINNING  THE  CHARTERS  "  100 
VII.    MASSACHUSETTS  DEFIANT                          "  116 

VIII.    WARS  WITH  THE  INDIANS  129 

IX.    THE  BAY  COLONY  DISCIPLINED                  "  147 

X.    THE  ANDROS  REGIME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND     "  166 

XL    THE  END  OF  AN  ERA                                   "  194 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE                             "  201 

INDEX                                                           "  205 


vii 

634361 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE     DEPARTURE     OF     THE  MAY- 
FLOWER, 1621 

From  the  painting  by  Ferris.  In  the  Ferris 
Collection  of  American  Historical  Paint- 
ings.   Copyright,  J.  L.  G.  Ferris.  Frontispiece 

COLONIAL  NEW  ENGLAND,  1620-1690 
Map  by  W.  L.  G.  Joerg,  American  Geo- 
graphical Society.  Facing  page 


THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  COMING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

The  Pilgrims  and  Puritans,  whose  migration  to  the 
New  World  marks  the  beginning  of  permanent 
settlement  in  New  England,  were  children  of  the 
same  age  as  the  enterprising  and  adventurous 
pioneers  of  England  in  Virginia,  Bermuda,  and  the 
Caribbean.  It  was  the  age  in  which  the  founda- 
tions of  the  British  Empire  were  being  laid  in  the 
Western  Continent.  The  "  spacious  times  of  great 
Elizabeth  "  had  passed,  but  the  new  national  spirit 
born  of  those  times  stirred  within  the  English 
people.  The  Kingdom  had  enjoyed  sixty  years 
of  domestic  peace  and  prosperity,  and  Englishmen 
were  eager  to  enter  the  lists  for  a  share  in  the  ad- 
vantages which  the  New  World  oflFered  to  those 

who  would  venture  therein.    Both  landowning  and 

1 


2       THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

landholding  classes,  gentry  and  tenant  farmers 
alike,  were  clamoring,  the  one  for  an  increase  of 
their  landed  estates,  the  other  for  freedom  from  the 
\  feudal^  restraints  which  still  legally  bound  them. 
The  land-hunger  of  neither  class  could  be  satisfied 
in  a  narrow  island  where  the  law  and  the  lawgivers 
were  in  favor  of  the  maintenance  of  feudal  rights. 
The  expectations  of  all  were  aroused  by  visions 
of  wealth  from  the  El  Dorados  of  the  West,  or  of 
profit  from  commercial  enterprises  which  appealed 
to  the  cupidity  of  capitalists  and  led  to  invest- 
ments that  promised  speedy  and  ample  returns. 
A  desire  to  improve  social  conditions  and  to 
solve  the  problem  of  the  poor  and  the  vagrant, 
which  had  become  acute  since  the  dissolution  of  the 
monasteries,  was  arousing  the  authorities  to  deal 
with  the  pauper  and  to  dispose  of  the  criminal 
in  such  a  way  as  to  yield  a  profitable  service  to 
the  kingdom.  England  was  full  of  resolute  men, 
sea-dogs  and  soldiers  of  fortune,  captains  on  the 
land  as  well  as  the  sea,  who  in  times  of  peace  were 
seeking  employment  and  profit  and  who  needed  an 
outlet  for  their  energies.  Some  of  these  continued 
in  the  service  of  kings  and  princes  in  Europe; 
others  conducted  enterprises  against  the  Spaniaras 
in  the  West  Indies  and  along  the  Spanish  Mainr, 

i 


T^Z  COMING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  3 

while  still  others,  such  as  John  Smith  and  Miles 
Standish  became  pioneers  in  the  work  of  English 
colonization.  s 
/But  more  important  than  the  promptings  of  1 
land-hunger  and  the  desire  for  wealth  and  ad-\ 
venture  was  the  call  made  by  a  social  and  religious  / 
movement  which  was  but  a  phase  of  the  general  \ 
restlessness  and  popular  discontent.  '  The  Ref or-  ^ 
mation,  in  which  this  movement  had  its  origin, 
was  more  than  a  revolt  from  the  organization  and 
doctrines  of  the  mediaeval  church;  it  voiced  the 
yearning  of  the  middle  classes  for  a  position  com- 
mensurate  with  their  growing  prominence  in 
the  national  life.    Though  the  feudal  tenantry, 
given  over  to  agriculture  and  bound  by  the  con- 
ventions of  feudal  law,  were  still  perpetuating 
many  of  the  old  customs,  the  towns  were  emanci- 
pating themselves  from  feudal  control,  and  by 
means  of  their  wealth  and  industrial  activities 
were  winning  recognition  as  independent  and 
largely  self-sufficing  units.     The  gild,  a  closely 
compacted  brotherhood,  existing  partly  for  re- 
ligious and  educational  purposes  and  partly  for 
the  control  of  handicrafts  and  the  exchange  of 
goods,  became  the  center  of  middle-class  energy, 
and  in  thousands  of  instances  hedged  in  the  lives 


4       THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLbko 

of  the  humbler  artisans.  /TThus  it  was  largely 
from  those  who  knew  no  wider  world  than  the 
fields  which  they  cultivated  and  the  gilds  which 
governed  their  standards  and  output  that  the 
early  settlers  of  New  England  were  recruited* 

Equally  important  with  the  social  changes  were 
those  which  concerned  men's  faith  and  religious 
organization.  The  Peace  of  Augsburg,  which  in 
1555  had  closed  for  the  moment  the  warfare  result- 
ing from  the  Reformation,  not  only  recognized 
the  right  of  Protestantism  to  exist,  but  also  handed 
over  to  each  state,  whether  kingdom,  duchy,  or 
principality,  full  power  to  control  the  creed  within 
its  borders.  Whoever  ruled  the  state  could  deter- 
mine the  religion  of  his  subjects,  a  dictum  which 
denied  the  right  of  individuals  or  groups  of  in- 
dividuals to  depart  from  the  established  faith. 
Jlence  arose  a  second  revolt,  not  against  the  medi- 
aeval church  and  empire  but  against  the  authority 
of  the  state  and  its  creed,  whether  Roman  Catholic, 
Anglican,  Lutheran,  or  Calvinist,  a  revolt  in  which 
Huguenot  in  France  battled  for  his  right  to  believe 
as  he  wished,  and  Puritan  in  England  refused  to 
conform  to  a  manner  of  worship  which  retained 
much  of  the  mediaeval  liturgy  and  ceremonial.j 
Just  as  all  great  revolutionary  movements  in 


IE  COMING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  5 

churcli  or  state  give  rise  to  men  who  repudiate  tra- 
dition and  all  accretions  due  to  human  experience, 
and  base  their  political  and  religious  ideals  upon 
the  law  of  nature,  the  rights  of  man,  the  inner 
light,  or  the  Word  of  God; yso,  too,  in  England 
under  Elizabeth  and  James  I,  leaders  appeared 
who  demanded  radical  changes  in  faith  and  prac- 
tice, and  advocated  complete  separation  from  the 
Anglican  Church  and  isolation  from  the  religious 
world  about  them.  Of  such  were  the  Separatists, 
who  rejected  the  Anglican  and  other  creeds, 
severed  all  bonds  with  a  national  church  system, 
cast  aside  form,  ceremony,  liturgy,  and  a  hierarchy 
of  church  orders,  and  sought  for  the  true  faith 
and  form  of  worship  in  the  Word  of  God.  For 
these  men  the  Bible  was  the  only  test  of  religious 
truth. 

The  Separatists  organized  themselves  into  small 
religious  groups,  as  independent  communities  or 
companies  of  Christians,  covenanted  with  God  and 
keeping  the  Divine  Law  in  a  Holy  Communion. 
They  consisted  in  the  main  of  men  and  women 
in  the  humbler  walks  of  life  —  artisans,  tenant 
farmers,  with  some  middle-class  gentry.  Suf- 
ficient to  themselves  and  knit  together  in  the 
fashion  of  a  gild  or  brotherhood,  they  believed 


6       THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAIs(i) 

in  a  church  system  of  the  simplest  form  aid  fol- 
lowed the  Bible,  Old  and  New  Testaments  alike, 
as  the  guide  of  their  lives.  /  Desiring  to  withdraw 
from  the  world  as  it  was  that  they  might  commune 
together  in  direct  relations  with  God,  they  accepted 
persecution  as  the  test  of  their  faith  and  wel- 
comed hardship,  banishment,  and  even  death  as 
proofs  of  righteousness  and  truth.]  Convinced  of 
the  scriptural  soundness  of  what  they  believed  and 
what  they  practised,  and  confident  of  salvation 
through  unyielding  submission  to  God's  will  as 
they  interpreted  it,  they  became  conspicuous 
because  of  their  radical  thought  and  peculiar 
forms  of  worship,  and  inevitably  drew  upon 
themselves  the  attention  of  the  authorities,  both 
secular  and  ecclesiastical. 

The  leading  centers  of  Separatism  were  in 
London  and  Norfolk,  but  the  seat  of  the  little 
congregation  that  eventually  led  the  way  across 
the  sea  to  New  England  was  in  Scrooby  in  Not- 
tinghamshire. There  —  in  Scrooby  manor-house, 
where  William  Brewster,  the  father,  was  receiver 
and  bailiff,  and  his  son,  the  future  elder  of  the 
Plymouth  colony,  was  acting  postmaster;  where 
Richard  Clayton  preached  and  John  Robinson 
prayed;  and  where  the  youthful  William  Bradford 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  7 

was  one  of  its  members  —  there  was  gathered  a 
small  Separatist  congregation  composed  of  humble 
folk  of  Nottinghamshire  and  adjoining  counties. 
They  were  soon  discovered  worshiping  in  the 
manor-house  chapel,  by  the  ecclesiastical  authori- 
ties of  Yorkshire,  and  for  more  than  a  year  were 
subjected  to  persecution,  some  being  taken  and 
clapt  up  in  prison, others  having  their  houses 
besett  and  watcht  night  and  day  and  hardly 
escaped  their  hands."  At  length  they  determined 
to  leave  England  for  Holland.  During  1607  and 
1608  they  escaped  secretly,  some  at  one  time, 
some  at  another,  all  with  great  loss  and  diffi- 
culty, until  by  the  August  of  the  latter  year  there 
were  gathered  at  Amsterdam  more  than  a  hundred 
men,  women,  and  children,  armed  with  faith 
and  patience.'* 

But  Amsterdam  proved  a  disappointing  refuge. 
And  in  1609  they  moved  to  Leyden,  "a  fair 
and  bewtifuU  citie,"  where  for  eleven  years  they 
remained,  pursuing  such  trades  as  they  could, 
chiefly  weaving  and  the  manufacture  of  cloth, 
"injoying  much  sweete  and  delightful  societie 
and  spiritual  comfort  togeather  in  the  ways  of 
God,  under  the  able  ministrie  and  prudente 
governmente  of  Mr.  John  Robinson  and  Mr. 


8       THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

William  Brewster/'  But  at  last  new  and  impera- 
tive reasons  arose,  demanding  a  third  removal, 
not  to  another  city  in  Holland,  but  this  time  to 
the  New  World  called  America.  They  were 
breaking  under  the  great  labor  and  hard  fare; 
they  feared  to  lose  their  language  and  saw  no  op- 
portunity to  educate  their  children;  they  disap- 
proved of  the  lax  Dutch  observance  of  Sunday 
and  saw  in  the  temptations  of  the  place  a  menace 
to  the  habits  and  morals  of  the  younger  members 
of  the  flock,  and,  in  the  influences  of  the  world 
around  them,  a  danger  to  the  purjty  of  their  creed 
and  their  practice.  They  determined  to  go  to  a 
new  country  ^'devoyd  of  all  civill  inhabitants,'* 
where  they  might  keep  their  names,  their  faith, 
and  their  nationality. 

After  many  misgivings,  the  fateful  decision  was 
reached  by  the  major  parte,"  and  prepara- 
tions for  departure  were  made.  But  where  to  go 
became  a  troublesome  problem.  The  merits  of 
Guiana  and  other  *'wild  coasts''  were  debated, 
but  finally  Virginia  met  with  general  approval, 
because  there  they  might  live  as  a  private  associa- 
tion, a  distinct  body  by  themselves,  similar  to 
other  private  companies  already  established  there. 
To  this  end  they  sent  two  of  their  number  to 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  9 


England  to  secure  a  patent  from  the  Virginia 
Company  of  London:j  Under  this  patent  and  in 
bond  of  allegiance  to  King  James,  yet  acting  as 
a  "'body  in  the  most  strict  and  sacred  bond  and 
covenant  of  the  Lord/'  an  independent  and  abso- 
lute church,  they  became  a  civil  community  also, 
with  governors  chosen  for  the  work  from  among 
themselves.  But  the  dissensions  in  the  London 
Company  caused  them  to  lose  faith  in  that  as- 
sociation, and,  hearing  of  the  reorganization  of 
the  Virginia  Company  of  Plymouth,  ^  which  about 
this  time  obtained  a  new  charter  as  the  New  Eng- 
land Council,  they  turned  from  southern  to  north- 
ern Virginia  —  that  is,  to  New  England  —  and 
resolved  to  make  their  settlement  where  according 
to  reports  fishing  might  become  a  means  of  liveli- 
hood. 

But  their  plans  could  not  be  executed  without 
assistance;  and,  coming  into  touch  with  a  London 

*  In  1606  King  James  liad  granted  a  charter  incorporating  two 
companies,  one  of  which,  made  up  of  gentlemen  and  merchants  in 
and  about  London,  was  known  as  the  Virginia  Company  of  London, 
the  other  as  the  Virginia  Company  of  Plymouth.  The  former  was 
authorized  to  plant  colonies  between  thirty-four  and  forty-one 
degrees  north  latitude,  and  the  latter  between  thirty-eight  and  forty- 
five,  but  neither  was  to  plant  a  colony  within  one  hundred  miles  of 
the  other.  Jamestown,  the  first  colony  of  the  London  Company, 
was  now  thirteen  years  old.  The  Plymouth  Company  had  made  no 
permanent  settlement  in  its  domain. 


10     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

merchant,  Thomas  Weston,  who  promised  to  aid 
them,  they  entered,  into  what  proved  to  be  a  long 
and  wearisome  negotiation  with  a  group  of  ad- 
venturers —  gentlemen,  merchants,  and  others, 
seventy  in  number  —  for  an  advance  of  money 
to  finance  the  expedition,  tee  Pilgrims  entered 
into  a  partnership  with  the  merchants  to  form 
a  voluntary  joint-stock  company.  It  was  under- 
stood that  the  merchants,  who  purchased  shares, 
were  to  remain  in  England;  that  the  colonists, 
who  contributed  their  personal  service  at  a  fixed 
rating,  were  to  go  to  America/  there  to  labor  at 
trade,  trucking,  and  fishing  for  seven  years;  and 
that  during  this  time  all  profits  were  to  remain  in 
a  common  stock  and  all  lands  to  be  left  undivided.J  J 
The  conditions  were  hard  and  discouraging,  but 
there  was  no  alternative;  and  at  last,  embarking  at 
Delfthaven  in  the  Speedwell^  a  small  ship  bought 
and  fitted  in  Holland,  they  came  to  Southampton, 
where  another  and  larger  vessel,  the  Mayflower^ 
was  in  waiting.  In  August,  1620,  the  two  vessels 
set  sail,  but  the  Speedwell,  provmg  unseaworthy, 
put  back  after  two  attempts,  and  the  Mgy^ower 
went  on  alone,  bearing  one  hundred  and  two  pas- 
sengers, two-thirds  of  the  whole,  picked  out  as 
worthy  and  willing  to  undertake  the  voyage. 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  11 

The  Mayflower  reached  the  waters  of  New  Eng- 
land on  the  11th  of  November  after  a  tedious 
course  of  sixty-five  days  from  Plymouth  to  Cape 
Cod;  but  they  did  not  decide  on  their  place  of 
landing  until  the  21st  of  December.  Four  days 
later  they  erected  on  the  site  of  the  town  of  Ply- 
mouth their  first  building. 

The  coast  of  New  England  was  no  unknown 
shore.  During  the  years  from  1607  to  1620, 
while  settlers  were  founding  permanent  colonies 
at  Jamestown  and  in  Bermuda,  explorers  and 
fishermen,  both  English  and  French,  had  skirted 
its  headlands  and  penetrated  its  harbors.  In 
1614,  John  Smith,  the  famous  Virginia  pioneer, 
who  had  left  the  service  of  the  London  Company 
and  was  in  the  employ  of  certain  London  merchants, 
had  explored  the  northern  coast  in  an  open  boat 
and  had  given  the  region  its  name.  These  many 
voyages  and  ventures  at  trading  and  fishing  served 
to  arouse  enthusiasm  in  England  for  a  world  of 
good  rivers  and  harbors,  rich  soil,  and  wonderful 
fisaing,  and  to  spread  widely  a  knowledge  of  the 
coast|^from  Newfoundland  to  the  Hudson  River. 
'Of  this  knowledge  the  Pilgrims  reaped  the  benefit, 
the  captain  of  the  Mayflower,  Christopher, 
nes,  against  whom  any  charge  of  treachery  may 


12     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

be  dismissed,  guided  them,  it  is  true,  to  a  region 
unoccupied  by  Englishmen  but  not  to  one  un- 
known or  poorly  esteemed.  /  The  miseries  that  con- 
fronted the  Pilgrims  during  their  first  year  in 
Plymouth  colony  were  not  due  to  the  inhospi- 
tality  of  the  region,  but  to  the  time  of  year  when 
they  landed  upon  it;  and  insufficiently  provisioned 
as  they  were  before  they  left  England,  it  is  little 
wonder  that  suffering  and  death  should  have 
accompanied  their  first  experience  with  a  New 
England  winter. 

This  little  group  of  men  and  women  landed  on 
territory  that  had  been  granted  to  the  New  Eng- 
land Council  and  they  themselves  had  neither 
patent  for  their  land  nor  royal  authority  to  set 
up  a  government.  But  some  form  of  government 
was  absolutely  necessary.  Before  starting  from 
Southampton,  they  had  followed  Robinson's  in- 
structions to  choose  a  governor  and  assistants 
for  each  ship  "to  order  the  people  by  the  way"; 
and  now  that  they  were  at  the  end  of  their  long 
voyage,  the  men  of  the  company  met  in  the  cabin 
of  the  May  flower  y  and  drew  up  a  covenant  in  i.c- 
cordance  with  which  they  combined  themselves  to- 
gether into  a  body  politic  for  their  better  order,*| 
and  preservation.    This  compact,  signed  by  fort  1 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  13 

one  members,  of  whom  eleven  bore  the  title  of 
''Mister/'  was  a  plantation  covenant,  the  political 
counterpart  of  the  church  covenant  which  bound 
together  every  Separatist  community.  It  pro- 
vided that  the  people  should  live  together  in  a 
peaceable  and  orderly  manner  under  civil  authori- 
ties of  their  own  choosing,  and  was  the  first  of 
many  such  covenants  entered  into  by  New  Eng- 
land towns,  not  defining  a  government  but  bind- 
ing the  settlers  to  unite  politically  as  they  had 
already  done  for  religious  worship.  /  John  Carver, 
who  had  been  chosen  governor  on  the  Mayflower ^ 
was  confirmed  as  governor  of  the  settlement  and 
given  one  assistant.  /  After  their  goods  had  been 
set  on  shore  and  a  few  cottages  built,  the  whole 
body  "mette  and  consulted  of  lawes  and  orders, 
both  for  their  civil  and  military  governmente, 
still  adding  therunto  as  urgent  occasion  in  severall 
times,  and  as  cases  did  require. 

Of  this  courageous  but  sorely  stricken  com- 
munity more  than  half  died  before  the  first  winter 
was  over.  But  gradually  the  people  became  ac- 
climated, new  colonists  came  out,  some  from  the 
community  at  Leyden,  in  the  Fortune^  the  Anney  V 
the  Charity^  and  the  Handmaid,  and  the  numbers 
steadily  increased.    The  settlers   were  in  the 


14     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLA1>TD 

main  a  homogeneous  body,  both  as  to  soc  iai  class 
and  to  religious  views  and  purpose.  Among  them 
were  undesirable  members  —  some  were  sent  out 
by  the  English  merchants  and  others  came  out  of 
their  own  accord  —  who  played  stool-ball  on  Sun- 
day, committed  theft,  or  set  the  community  by  the 
ears,  as  did  one  notorious  offender  named  Lyford. 
But  their  number  was  not  great,  for  most  of  them 
remained  but  a  short  time,  and  then  went  to  Vir- 
ginia or  elsewhere,  or  were  shipped  back  to  Eng- 
land by  the  Pilgrims  as  incorrigibles.  /  The^life  of 
the  people  was  predominantly  agricultural,  with 
fishing,  salt-making,  and  trading  with  the  Indians 
as  allied  interests.  The  partners  in  England  sent 
overseas  cattle,  stock,  and  laborers,  and,  as  their 
profits  depended  on  the  success  of  the  settlement, 
did  what  they  could  to  encourage  its  develop- 
ment,' The  position  of  the  Pilgrims  was  that 
of  sharers  and  partners  with  the  merchants, 
from  whom  they  received  directions  but  not 
commands. 

But  under  the  agreement  of  1620  with  their 
partners  in  London,  which  remained  in  force  for 
seven  years,  the  Plymouth  people  could  neither 
divide  their  land  nor  dispose  of  the  products  of 
their  labor,  and  so  burdensome  became  this  ar- 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  15 


rangem^^\  c  ^hat  in  1623  temporary  assignments  of 
larld  were  made  which  in  1624  became  permanent. 
A«  Bradford  said,  and  his  comment  is  full  of  wisdom : 

T  he  experience  that  was  had  in  this  commone  course 
and  condition,  tried  sundrle  years,  and  that  amongst 
godly  and  sober  men,  may  well  evince  the  vanitie  of 
that  conceite  of  Platos  and  other  ancients,  applauded 
by  some  of  later  times;  that  the  taking  away  of  prop- 
ertie,  and  bringing  in  communitie  into  a  comone  wealth, 
would  make  them  happy  and  florishing;  as  if  they  were 
wiser  then  God.  For  this  comunitie  (so  farr  as  it  was) 
was  found  to  breed  much  confusion  and  discontent, 
and  retard  much  imployment  that  would  have  been 
to  their  benefite  and  comf  orte.  For  the  yong-men  that 
were  most  able  and  fitte  for  labour  and  service  did  re- 
pine that  they  should  spend  their  time  and  streingth 
to  worke  for  other  mens  wives  and  children,  with  out 
any  recompence.  The  strong,  or  man  of  parts,  had  no 
more  in  devission  of  victails  and  cloaths,  than  he 
that  was  weake  and  not  able  to  doe  a  quarter  the  other 
could;  this  was  thought  injuestice.  The  aged  and 
graver  men  to  be  ranked  and  equalised  in  labours,  and 
victails,  cloaths,  etc.,  with  the  meaner  and  yonger 
sorte,  thought  it  some  indignitie  and  disrespect  unto 
them.  And  for  mens  wives  to  be  commanded  to  doe 
servise  for  other  men,  as  dresing  their  meate,  washing 
their  cloaths,  etc.,  they  deemd  it  a  kind  of  slaverie, 
neither  could  many  husbands  well  brooke  it. 

During  the  two  years  that  followed,  so  evident 
was  the  failure  of  the  joint  undertaking  that 


16     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

efforts  were  made  on  both  sides  to  brlir  'it  to  an 
end;  for  the  merchants,  with  no  profit  from  thf 
enterprise,  were  anxious  to  avoid  further  indebted 
ness;  and  the  colonists,  wearying  of  the  dua 
control,  wished  to  reap  for  themselves  the  fuL 
reward  of  their  own  efforts.  Under  the  new  ar- 
rangement of  small  private  properties,  the  settlers 
began  ^'to  prise  corne  as  more  pretious  than  silver, 
and  those  that  had  some  to  spare  begane  to  trade 
one  with  another  for  small  things,  by  the  quart, 
potle,  and  peck,  etc.,  for  money  they  had  none/' 
Later,  finding  ''their  corne,  what  they  could 
spare  from  ther  necessities,  to  be  a  commoditie, 
(for  they  sould  it  at  6s.  a  bushell)  [they]  used 
great  dilligence  in  planting  the  same.  And  the 
Gov[erno]r  and  shuch  as  were  designed  to  manage 
the  trade,  (for  it  was  retained  for  the  generall 
good,  and  none  were  to  trade  in  particuler,)  they 
followed  it  to  the  best  advantage  they  could;  and 
wanting  trading  goods,  they  understoode  that  a 
plantation  which  was  at  Monhigen,  and  belonged 
to  some  marchants  of  Phmoth  [England]  was  to 
breake  up,  and  diverse  usefull  goods  was  ther 
to  be  sould,"  the  governor  (Bradford  himself) 
and  Edward  Winslow  "'tooke  a  boat  and  some 
hands  and  went  thither.  .  .  .    With  these  goods, 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  17 

and  their  corne  after  harvest  they  gott  good  store 
of  trade,  so  as  they  were  enabled  to  pay  their 
ingagements  against  the  time,  and  to  get  some 
cloathing  for  the  people,  and  had  some  comodities 
beforehand.''  ^  Though  conditions  were  hard  and 
often  discouraging,  the  Pilgrims  gradually  found 
themselves  self-supporting  and  as  soon  as  this 
fact  became  clear,  they  sent  Isaac  AUerton  to 
England  *'to  make  a  composition  with  the  adven- 
turers." As  a  result  of  the  negotiations  an  "  agree- 
ment or  bargen''  was  made  whereby  eight  leading 
members  of  the  colony  bought  the  shares  of  the 
merchants  for  £1800  and  distributed  the  payment 
among  the  settlers,  who  at  this  time  numbered 
altogether  about  three  hundred.  Each  share 
carried  with  it  a  certain  portion  of  land  and  live- 
stock. The  debt  was  not  finally  liquidated  until 
1642. 

By  1630,  the  Plymouth  colony  was  fairly  on 
its  feet  and  beginning  to  grow  in  outward  estate.'' 
^he  settlers  increased  in  number,  prospered 
financially,  and  scattered  to  the  outlying  districts; 
and  Plymouth  the  town  and  Plymouth  the  colony 
ceased  to  be  identical.  Before  1640,  the  latter 
had  become  a  cluster  of  ten  towns,  each  a  cove- 
nanted community  with  its  church  and  elder. 

2 


18     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

■Though  the  colony  never  obtained  a  charter  of 
incorporation  from  the  Crown,  it  developed  a 
/  form  of  government  arising  naturally  from  its  own 
needs.  7  By  1633  its  governor  and  one  assistant  had 
become  a  governor  and  seven  assistants,  elected 
annually  at  a  primary  assembly  held  in  Plymouth 
town;  and  the  three  parts,  governor,  assistants, 
and  assembly,  together  constituted  the  governing 
body  of  the  colony.  i|  In  1636,  a  revision  of  the 
laws  and  ordinances  was  made  in  the  form  of 
*'The  Great  Fundamentals,''  a  sort  of  constitu- 
tion, frequently  interspersed  with  statements  of 
principles,  which  was  printed  with  additions  in 
1671.  The  right  to  vote  was  limited  at  first  to 
those  who  were  members  of  the  company  and 
liable  for  its  debt,  but  later  the  suffrage  was  ex- 
tended to  include  others  than  the  first-comers, 
and  in  1633  was  exercised  by  sixty-eight  persons 
altogether.  1  In  1668,  a  vQter  was  required  to  have 
pj;o^erty,  to  be  "of  sober  and  peaceable  conversa- 
tion," and  to  take  an  oath  of  fidelity,  but  ap- 
parently he  was  never  required  to  take  the  oath 
of  allegiance  to  the  Crown.j  So  rapidly  did  the 
colony  expand  that,  by  1639,  the  holding  of  a 
primary  assembly  in  Plymouth  town  became  so 
inconvenient  that  delegates  had  to  be  chosen. 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  PILGRIM^  19 

Thus  there  was  introduced  into  the  colony  a  form 
of  representative  government,  though  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  governor,  assistants,  and  deputies  sat 
together  in  a  common  room  and  never  divided 
into  two  houses,  as  did  the  assembhes  in  other 
colonies. 

The  settlement  of  Plymouth  colony  is  conspicu- 
ous in  New  England  history  because  of  the  faith 
and  courage  and  suffering  of  those  who  engaged 
in  it  and  because  of  the  ever  alluring  charm  of 
William  Bradford's  History  of  Plimouth  Plantation. 
The  greatness  of  the  Pilgrims  lay  in  their  illus- 
trious example  and  in  the  influence  they  exercised 
upon  the  church  life  of  the  later  New  England 
colonies,  for^to^the  Pilgrims  was  due  the  fact  that 
the  congregational  way  of  organization  and  wor- 
ship became  the  accepted  form  in  Massachusetts 
and  Connecticut.  But  in  other  respects  Ply- 
mouth was  vastly  overshadowed  by  her  vigorous 
neighbors.  Her  people,  humble  and  simple,  were\ 
without  importance  in  the  world  of  thought,  1 
literature,  or  education.  Their  intellectual  and  ma- 
terial poverty,  lack  of  business  enterprise,  unfavor- 
able situation,  and  defenseless  position  in  the  eyes 
of  the  law  rendered  them  almost  a  negative  factor 
in  the  later  life  of  New  England.    No  great  move- 


20     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

ment  can  be  traced  to  their  initiation,  no  great 
leader  to  birth  within  their  borders,  and  no  great 
work  of  art,  Hterature,  or  scholarship  to  those 
who  belonged  to  this  unpretending  company. 
The  Pilgrim  Fathers  stand  rather  as  an  emblem 
of  virtue  than  a  moulding  force  in  the  life  of  the 
nation. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  BAY  COLONY 

While  the  Pilgrims  were  thus  establishing  them- 
selves as  the  first  occupants  of  the  soil  of  New 
England,  other  men  of  various  sorts  and  motives 
were  trying  their  fortunes  within  its  borders  and 
were  testing  the  opportunities  which  it  offered 
for  fishing  and  trade  with  the  Indians.  /They 
came  as  individuals  and  companies,  men  of  wan- 
dering disposition,  romantic  characters  many  of 
them,  resembling  the  rovers  and  adventurers  in 
the  Caribbean  or  representing  some  of  the  many 
activities  prevalent  in  England  at  the  beginning  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  Thomas  Weston,  former 
ally  of  the  Pilgrims,  settled  with  a  motley  crew 
of  rude  fellows  at  Wessagusset  (Qui^cy)  and  there 
established  a  trading  post  in  1622.  Of  this 
settlement,  which  came  to  an  untimely  end  after 
causing  the  Pilgrims  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  only 
a  blockhouse  and  stockade  remained.  Another 

21 


22     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

irregular  trader.  Captain  WoUaston,  with  some 
thirty  or  forty  people,  chiefly  servants,  established 
himself  in  1625  two  miles  north  of  Wessagusset, 
calling  the  place  Mount  Wollaston.  With  him 
came  that  wit,  versifier,  and  prince  of  roysterers, 
Thomas  Morton,  who,  after  WoUaston  had  moved 
on  to  Virginia,  became  "lord  of  misrule."  Dub- 
bing his  seat  Merrymount,  drinking,  carousing,  and 
corrupting  the  Indians,  affronting  the  decorous 
Separatists  at  Plymouth,  Morton  later  became  a 
serious  menace  to  the  peace  of  Massachusetts  Bay. 
The  Pilgrims  felt  that  the  coming  of  such  adven- 
turers and  scoffers,  who  were  none  too  scrupulous 
in  their  dealings  with  either  white  man  or  Indian 
and  were  given  to  practices  which  the  Puritans 
heartily  abhorred,  was  a  calamity  showing  that  even 
in  the  wilds  of  America  they  could  not  escape  the 
world  from  which  they  were  anxious  to  withdraw. 

'  The  settlements  formed  by  these  squatters  and 
stragglers  were  quite  unauthorized  by  the  New 
England  Council,  which  owned  the  title  to  the  soiTj 
As  this  Council  had  accomplished  very  little  under 
its  patent.  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  its  most  active 
member,  persisted  in  his  efforts  to  found  a  colony, 
brought  about  a  general  distribution  of  the  terri- 
tory among  its  members,  and  obtained  for  him- 


THE  BAY  COLONY  23 

self  and  his  son  Robert,  the  section  around  and 
immediately  north  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  An 
expedition  was  at  once  launched.  |  In  September, 
1623,  Robert  Gorges  with  six  gentlemen  and  a 
well-equipped  and  well-organized  body  of  settlers 
reached  Plymouth,  —  the  forerunners,  it  was  hoped, 
of  a  large  number  to  come.  This  company  of  set- 
tlers was  composed  of  families,  the  heads  of  which 
were  mechanics  and  farmers,  and  with  them  were 
two  clergymen,  Morrell  and  Blackstone,  the  whole 
constituting  the  greatest  enterprise  set  on  foot 
in  America  by  the  Council.  Robert  Gorges,  bear- 
ing a  commission  constituting  him  Governor-Gen- 
eral over  all  New  England,  made  his  settlement 
at  Weston's  old  place  at  Wessagusset.  Here 
he  built  houses  and  stored  his  goods  and  began 
the  founding  of  Weymouth,  the  second  permanent 
habitation  in  New  England  and  the  first  on 
Massachusetts  Bay.  Unfortunately,  famine,  that 
arch-enemy  of  all  the  early  settlers,  fell  upon  his 
company,  his  father's  resources  in  England  proved 
inadequate,  and  he  and  others  were  obliged  to 
return.  Of  those  that  remained  a  few  stayed  at 
Wessagusset;  one  of  the  clergy  men,  William  Black- 
stone,  with  his  wife  went  to  Shawmut  (Boston) ; 
Samuel  Maverick  and  his  wife,  to  Winnissimmet 


24     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

(Chelsea);  and  the  Walfords,  to  Mishawum 
(Charlestown).  Probably  all  these  people  were 
Anglicans;  some  later  became  freemen  of  the 
Massachusetts  colony;  others  who  refused  to 
conform  returned  to  England;  but  Blackstone 
remained  in  his  little  cottage  on  the  south  slope 
of  Beacon  Hill,  unwilling  to  join  any  of  the 
churches,  because,  as  he  said,  he  came  from  Eng- 
land to  escape  the  *'Lord  Bishops,''  and  he  did 
not  propose  in  America  to  be  under  the  *'Lord 
Brethren/' 

The  colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay  began  as  a 
fishing  venture  with  profit  as  its  object.  It  so  hap- 
pened that  the  Pilgrims  wished  to  secure  a  right 
to  fish  off  Cape  Ann,  and  through  one  of  their 
number  they  applied  to  Lord  SheflSeld,  a  member 
of  the  Council  who  had  shared  in  the  distribution 
of  1623.  Sheffield  caused  a  patent  to  be  drawn, 
which  the  Plymouth  people  conveyed  to  a  Dor- 
chester company  desiring  to  establish  a  fishing  col- 
ony in  New  England.  The  chief  promoter  of  the 
Dorchester  venture  was  the  Reverend  John  White, 
a  conforming  Puritan  clergyman,  in  whose  congre- 
gation was  one  John  Endecott.  The  company 
thus  organized  remained  in  England  but  sent 
some  fourteen  settlers  to  Cape  Ann  in  the  winter 


THE  BAY  COLONY  25 

of  1623-1624.  Fishing  and  planting,  however, 
did  not  go  well  together,  the  venture  failed,  and 
the  settlers  removed  southward  to  Naumkeag 
(Salem).  Though  many  of  the  English  company 
desired  to  abandon  the  undertaking,  there  were 
others,  among  whom  were  a  few  Puritans  or  Non- 
conformists, who  favored  its  continuance.  These 
men  consulted  with  others  of  like  mind  in  London, 
and  through  the  help  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick, 
a  nobleman  friendly  to  the  Puritan  cause,  a  patent 
was  issued  by  the  Council  to  Endecott  and  five 
associates,  for  land  extending  from  above  the 
Merrimac  to  below  the  Charles.  This  patent,  it 
will  be  noticed,  included  the  territory  already 
granted  to  Gorges  and  his  son  Robert,  and  was 
obtained  apparently  with  the  consent  of  Gorges, 
who  thought  that  his  own  and  his  son's  rights  would 
be  safely  protected.  Under  this  patent,  the  part- 
ners sent  over  Endecott  as  governor  with  sixty 
others  to  begin  a  colony  at  Salem,  where  the  *^old 
planters''  from  Cape  Ann  had  already  established 
themselves.  Salem  was  thus  a  plantation  from 
September,  1628,  to  the  summer  of  1630,  on  land 
granted  to  the  associates  in  England;  and  the  re- 
lations of  these  two  were  much  the  same  as  those 
of  Jamestown  with  the  London  Company. 


26     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Endecott  and  his  associates  soon  made  it  evi- 
dent, however,  that  they  were  planning  larger 
things  for  themselves  and  had  no  intention,  if  they 
could  help  it,  of  recognizing  the  claims  of  Gorges 
and  his  son.  They  wanted  complete  control  of 
their  territory  in  New  England,  and  to  this  end  they 
applied  to  the  Crown  for  a  confirmation  of  their 
land-patent  and  for  a  charter  of  incorporation  as  a 
company  with  full  powers  of  government.  As  this 
application  was  a  deliberate  defiance  of  Gorges  and 
the  New  England  Council,  it  has  always  been  a  mat- 
ter of  surprise  that  the  associates  were  able  to  gain 
the  support  of  the  Crown  in  this  effort  to  oust 
Gorges  and  his  son  from  lands  that  were  legally 
theirs.  No  satisfactory  explanation  has  ever  been 
advanced,  but  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  at  this  junc- 
ture Gorges  was  in  France  in  the  service  of  the 
King,  whereas  on  the  side  of  the  associates  and 
their  friends  was  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  himself 
deeply  interested  in  colonizing  projects  and  one  of 
the  most  powerful  men  in  England.  |  The  charter 
was  obtained  March  4,  1629  —  how,  we- do  not 
know.  It  created  -ar— eerporation  of  twenty-six 
members,  Anglicans  and  Nonconformists,  known 
as  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Company; 

But  if  the  original  purpose  of  this  company  was 


THE  BAY  COLONY  27 

to  engage  in  a  business  enterprise  for  the  sake  of 
profit,  it  soon  underwent  a  noteworthy  transforma- 
tion. In  1629,  control  passed  into  the  hands  of 
those  members  of  the  company  in  whom  a  religious 
motive  was  uppermost.  How  far  the  charter 
was  planned  at  first  as  a  Puritan  contrivance  to 
be  used  in  case  of  need  will  never  be  known.  It 
is  equally  uncertain  whether  the  particular  form 
of  charter,  with  the  place  of  the  company's  resi- 
dence omitted,  was  selected  to  facilitate  a  possible 
removal  of  the  company  from  England  to  America; 
but  it  is  likely  that  removal  was  early  in  the  minds 
of  the  Puritan  members  of  the  company.  At  this 
time  a  great  many  people  felt  as  did  the  Reverend 
John  White,  who  expressed  the  hope  that  God's 
people  should  turn  with  eyes  of  longing  to  the 
free  and  open  spaces  of  the  New  World,  whither 
they  might  flee  to  be  at  peace.  But,  when  the 
charter  was  granted,  the  Puritans  were  not  in  con- 
trol of  the  company^  which  remained  in  England 
for  a  year  after  it  was  incorporated,  superintend- 
ing the  management  of  its  colony  just  as  other 
trading  companies  had  done. 

But  events  were  moving  rapidly  in  England. 
Between  March,  1629,  and  March,  1630,  Parlia- 
ment was  dissolved  under  circumstances  of  great 


28     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

excitement,  parliamentary  privileges  were  set 
aside,  parliamentary  leaders  were  sent  to  the 
Tower,  and  the  period  of  royal  rule  without  Par- 
liament began.  The  heavy  hand  of  an  autocratic 
government  fell  on  all  those  within  reach  who 
upheld  the  Puritan  cause,  among  whom  was  John 
Winthrop,  a  country  squire,  forty-one  years  of 
age,  who  was  deprived  of  his  oflSce  as  attorney  in 
the  Court  of  Wards.  Disillusioned  as  to  life  in 
England  because  of  financial  losses  and  family 
bereavements,  and  now  barred  from  his  customary 
employment  by  act  of  the  Government,  he  turned 
his  thoughts  toward  America.  Acting  with  the 
approval  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick  and  in  conjunction 
Vith  a  group  of  Puritan  friends  —  Thomas  Dudley, 
Isaac  Johnson,  Richard  Saltonstall,  and  John 
Humphrey, —  he  decided  in  the  summer  of  1629 
to  leave  England  forever,  and  in  September  he 
joined  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Company.  Almost 
immediately  he  showed  his  capacity  for  leader- 
ship, was  soon  elected  governor,  and  was  able  dur- 
ing the  following  winter  to  obtain  such  a  control 
of  affairs  as  to  secure  a  vote  in  favor  of  the  trans- 
fer of  charter  and  company  to  New  England. 
The  official  organization  was  remodeled  so  that 
only  those  desiring  to  remove  should  be  in  con- 


THE  BAY  COLONY  29 

trol,  and  on  March  29,  1630,  the  company 
with  its  charter,  accompanied  by  a  considerable 
number  of  prospective  colonists,  set  sail  from 
Cowes  near  the  Isle  of  Wight  in  four  vessels, 
the  Arabella^  the  Talbot,  the  Ambrose,  and  the 
Jewel,  the  remaining  passengers  following  in 
seven  other  vessels  a  week  or  two  later.  The 
voyages  of  the  vessels  were  long,  none  less  than 
nine  weeks,  by  way  of  the  Azores  and  the  Maine 
coast,  and  the  distressed  Puritans,  seven  hundred 
altogether,  scurvy-stricken  and  reduced  in  num- 
bers by  many  deaths,  did  not  reach  Salem  until 
June  and  July.  Hence  they  moved  on  to  Charles- 
town,  set  up  their  tents  on  the  slope  of  the  hill, 
and  on  the  23rd  of  August,  held  the  first  ojBBcial 
meeting  of  the  company  on  American  soil;  but  find- 
ing no  running  water  in  the  place  and  still  pursued 
by  sickness  and  death,  they  again  removed,  this 
time  to  Boston,  where  they  built  houses  against  the 
winter.  With  the  founding  of  this  colony  —  the 
colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay  —  a  new  era  for  New 
England  began. 

/'This  grant  of  territory  to  the  Massachusetts 
Bay  Company  and  of  the  charter  confirming  the 
title  and  conveying  powers  of  government  put  a 
complete  stop  to  Gorges's  plans  for  a  final  proprie- 


30     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

torship  in  New  England.  Gorges  had  acquiesced 
in  the  first  grant  by  the  New  England  Council 
because  he  thought  it  a  sub-grant,  like  that  to 
Plymouth,  in  no  way  injuring  his  own  control. 
But  when  in  1632,  he  learned  the  true  inwardness 
of  the  Massachusetts  title  and  discovered  that 
Warwick  and  the  Puritans  had  outwitted  him  by 
obtaining  royal  confirmation  of  a  grant  that  ex- 
tinguished his  own  proprietary  rights,  he  turned 
on  Warwick,  declared  that  the  charter  had  been 
surreptitiously  obtained,  and  demanded  that  it 
be  brought  to  the  Council  board.  Learning  that 
it  had  gone  to  New  England,  he  forced  the  with- 
drawal of  Warwick  from  the  Council,  and  from 
that  time  forward  for  five  years  bent  all  his  efforts 
to  overthrow  the  Puritan  colony  by  obtaining  the 
annulment  of  its  privileges. 

In  this  attempt,  he  was  aided  by  Captain  John 
Mason,  an  able,  energetic  promoter  of  colonizing 
movements  who  had  already  been  concerned  with 
settlements  in  Newfoundland  and  Nova  Scotia,  and 
who  was  zealous  to  begin  a  plantation  in  the  prov- 
ince of  Maine.  Mason  had  received  grants  from 
the  Council,  both  individually  and  in  partnership 
with  Gorges,  and  had  visited  New  England  in  the 
interest  of  his  claims.    Through  the  influence  of 


THE  BAY  COLONY  31 

Gorges,  he  was  now  made  a  member  of  the  Council 
and  joined  in  the  movement  to  break  the  hold  of 
the  Puritans  upon  New  England.  He  and  Gorges 
found  useful  allies  in  three  men  who  had  been 
driven  out  of  Massachusetts  by  the  Puritan  lead- 
ers soon  after  their  arrival  at  Boston  —  Thomas 
Morton  of  Merrymount,  Sir  Christopher  Gardiner, 
a  picturesque,  somewhat  mysterious  personage 
thought  to  have  been  an  agent  of  Gorges  in  New 
England,  with  methods  and  morals  that  gave 
offense  to  Massachusetts,  and  Philip  Ratcliffe, 
a  much  less  worthy  character  given  to  scandal  and 
invective,  who  had  been  deprived  of  his  ears  by 
the  Puritan  authorities.  These  men  were  bitter 
in  their  denunciation  of  the  Puritan  government. 

The  situation  was  perilous  for  the  new  colony, 
which  was  hardly  yet  firmly  established.  In  direct 
violation  of  the  royal  commands,  hundreds  of  men 
and  women  were  leaving  England  —  not  merely 
adventurers  or  humble  Separatists,  but  sober 
people  of  the  better  classes,  of  mature  years  and 
substantial  characters.  When,  therefore,  Gorges 
and  the  others  meeting  at  Gorges's  house  at 
Plymouth  brought  their  complaints  to  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Privy  Council,  they  were  listened  to 
with  attention,  and  instructions  were  sent  at  once 

I 


32     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

to  stop  the  Puritan  ships  and  to  bring  the  charter 
of  the  Massachusetts  Company  to  the  Council 
board.  To  check  the  Puritan  migration  and  to 
institute  further  inquiry  into  the  facts  of  the  case 
a  commission  was  appointed  in  1634,  with  Arch- 
bishop Laud  at  its  head,  for  the  special  purpose, 
among  others,  of  revoking  charters  ^'surreptiti- 
ously and  unduly  obtained/*  Gorges  and  Morton 
appealed  to  Laud  against  the  Puritans,  and  Morton 
wrote  his  New  England  Canaan^  which  he  dedicated 
to  Laud,  in  the  hope  of  exposing  the  motives 
of  the  colony  and  of  arousing  the  Archbishop 
to  action.  Warwick  threw  his  influence  on  the 
side  of  Massachusetts,  being  always  forward,  as 
Winthrop  said,  "to  do  good  to  our  colony";  and 
the  colony  itself,  fearing  attack,  began  to  fortify 
Castle  Island  in  the  harbor  and  to  prepare  for 
defense.  Endecott,  in  wrath,  defaced  the  royal 
ensign  at  Salem,  and  so  intense  was  the  excitement 
and  so  determined  the  attitude  of  the  Puritans  that, 
had  the  Crown  attempted  to  send  over  a  Governor- 
General  or  to  seize  the  charter  by  force,  the  colony 
would  have  resisted  to  the  full  extent  of  its  power. 

Gorges,  believing  that  he  could  work  better 
through  the  King  and  the  Archbishop  than  through 
the  New  England  Council,  brought  about  the  dis- 


THE  BAY  COLONY  33 

solution  of  that  body  in  1635,  thus  making  it  pos- 
sible for  the  King  to  deal  directly  with  the  New 
England  situation.  Before  its  dissolution  the 
Council  had  authorized  Morton,  acting  as  its  law- 
yer, to  bring  the  case  to  the  attention  of  the  Attor- 
ney-General of  England,  who  filed  in  the  Court  of 
King's  Bench  a  complaint  against  Massachusetts, 
as  a  result  of  which  a  writ  of  quo  warranto  was 
issued  against  the  Company. 

The  outlook  was  ominous  for  Puritanism,  not 
only  in  New  England  but  in  old  England  as  well. 
That  year  saw  the  flight  of  the  greatest  number  of 
emigrants  across  the  sea,  for  the  persecution  in 
England  was  at  its  height,  the  Puritan  aristocracy 
was  suflFering  in  its  estates,  and  Puritan  divines 
were  everywhere  silenced  or  dismissed.  Even  War- 
wick was  shorn  of  a  part  of  his  power.  Young 
Henry  Vane,  son  of  a  baronet,  had  already  gone 
to  America,  and  such  men  as  Lord  Saye  and  Sele, 
Lord  Brooke,  and  Sir  Arthur  Haslerigg  were 
thinking  of  migrating  and  had  prepared  a  refuge 
at  Saybrook  where  they  might  find  peace.  But 
the  turn  of  the  tide  soon  came.  ^  The  royal  Govern- 
ment was  bankrupt,  the  resistance  to  the  payment 
of  ship-money  was  already  making  itself  felt,  and 
disturbances  in  the  central  and  eastern  countie# 

3 


34     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

were  absorbing  the  attention  and  energies  of  the 
Government.  Gorges,  left  alone  to  execute  the 
writ  against  the  colony,  joined  with  Mason  in 
building  a  ship  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  the 
quo  warranto  to  New  England,  but  the  vessel 
broke  in  the  launching,  and  their  resources  were 
at  an  end.  Mason  died  in  1635,  and  Gorges,  an 
old  man  of  seventy,  bankrupt  and  discouraged, 
could  do  no  more.  Though  Morton  continued 
the  struggle,  and  though,  in  1638,  the  Committee 
of  the  Council  for  Foreign  Plantations  (the  Laud 
Commission)  again  demanded  the  charter,  the 
danger  was  past :  conditions  in  England  had  be- 
come so  serious  for  the  King  that  the  complaints 
against  Massachusetts  were  lost  to  view.  At  last 
in  1639  Gorges  obtained  his  charter  for  a  feudal 
propriety  in  Maine  but  no  further  attempts  were 
made  to  overthrow  the  Massachusetts  Bay  colony. 

.  During  the  years  from  1630  to  1640,  the  growth 
of  the  colony  was  extraordinarily  rapid.  In  the 
first  year  alone  seventeen  ships  with  two  thousand 
colonists  came  over,  and  it  is  estimated  that  by 
1641  three  hundred  vessels  bearing  twenty  thou- 
sand passengers  had  crossed  the  Atlantic.  It  was 
a  great  migration.  Inevitably  many  went  back, 
but  the  great  majority  remained  and  settled  in 


THE  BAY  COLONY  35 
Boston  and  its  neighborhood  —  Roxbury,  Charles- 
town,  Dorchester,  Cambridge,  and  Watertown, 
where  in  1643  were  situated  according  to  Win- 
throp  "near  half  of  the  commonwealth  for  number 
of  people  and  substance."    From  the  first  the  colo- 
nists dispersed  rapidly,  establishing  in  favorable 
places  settlements  which  they  generally  called  plan- 
tations but  sometimes  towns.    In  these  they  lived 
as  petty  religious  and  civil  communities,  each  under 
its  minister,  with  civil  officials  chosen  from  among 
themselves.  ,)ln  the  decade  following  1630  the  num- 
ber of  such  settlements  rose  to  twenty-two.  I  The 
inhabitants  were  almost  purely  English  in  stock, 
with  here  and  there  an  Irishman,  a  few  Jews,  and 
an  occasional  negro  from  the  West  Indies.  Nearly 
all  the  settlers  were  of  Puritan  sympathies,  and  of 
middle-class  origin— tenants  from  English  estates, 
artisans  from  English  towns,  and  many  inden- 
tured servants.  A  few  were  of  the  aristocracy,  such 
as  Lady  .Arabella  Johnson,  daughter  of  the  Earl 
of  Lincoln,  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall,  Lady  De- 
borah Moody,  members  of  the  Harlakenden 
family,  young  Henry    Vane,   Thomas  Gorges, 
and   a  few  others.    Of   "Misters"  and  "Es- 
quires" there  was  a  goodly  number,  such  as 
Winthrop,  Haynes,  Emanuel  Downing,  and  the 


36     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

like.  The  first  leaders  were  exceptional  men, 
possessed  of  ability  and  education,  and  many 
were  university  graduates,  who  brought  with 
them  the  books  and  the  habits  of  the  reader  and 
scholar  of  their  day.  They  were  superior  to 
those  of  the  second  and  third  generation  in  the 
breadth  of  their  ideas  and  in  the  vigor  and  origin- 
ality of  their  convictions. 

/  Migration  ceased  in  1641,  and  a  time  of  stress 
and  suffering  set  in.  Commodities  grew  scarce, 
prices  rose,  many  colonists  returned  to  England 
leaving  debts  behind,  and  as  yet  the  colony  pro- 
duced no  staples  to  exchange  for  merchandise  from 
the  mother  country.'!  Some  of  the  settlers,  dis- 
couraged,  went  to  the  West  Indies;  others,  fleeing 
for  fear  of  want,  found  their  way  to  the  Dutch  at 
Long  Island.  Pressure  was  brought  to  bear  at 
various  times  to  persuade  the  people  to  migrate 
elsewhere  as  a  body,  to  Old  Providence  and  Trini- 
dad in  the  Caribbean,  to  Maryland,  and  later  to 
Jamaica;  but  these  attempts  proved  vain.  The 
Puritan  was  willing  to  endure  hardship  and  suffer- 
ing for  the  sake  of  civil  and  religious  independence, 
but  he  was  not  willing  to  lose  his  identity  among 
those  who  did  not  share  his  faith  in  the  guiding 
hand  of  God  or  who  denied  the  principles  accord- 


THE  BAY  COLONY  37 

ing  to  which  he  wished  to  govern  his  community.  / 
At  first  the  leaders  of  the  migration  were  Non- 
conformists not  Separatists.  Francis  Higginson, 
Endecott's  minister  at  Salem,  had  declared  in 
1629  that  they  did  not  go  to  New  England  as 
separatists  from  the  Church  of  England  but  only 
as  those  who  would  separate  from  the  corruption 
in  it'';  and  Winthrop  used  "Easter"  and  the 
customary  names  of  the  months  until  1635.  But 
the  Puritans  became  essentially  Separatists  from 
the  day  when  Dr.  Samuel  Fuller  of  Plymouth 
persuaded  the  Salem  community,  even  before  the 
company  itself  had  left  England,  to  accept  the 
practices  of  the  Plymouth  Church.  Each  town 
consequently  had  its  church,  pastor,  teacher,  and 
covenant,  and  became  an  independent  Congrega- 
tional community  —  a  circumstance  which  left  a 
deep  impress  upon  the  life  and  history  of  New 
England. 

^The  government  of  the  colony  was  never  a 
democracy  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term.  '  At 
first  in  1630,  control  was  assumed  by  the  governor 
and  his  assistants,  leaving  but  little  power  in  the 
hands  of  the  freeman;  but  such  usurpation  of 
power  could  not  last,  and  in  1632  the  freemen 
w,ere^given  the  right  to  elect  oflScials,  to  make  and 


38     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

enforce  laws,  raise  money,  impose  taxes,  and 
dispose  of  lands.  Thus  was  begun  the  transforma- 
tion of  the  court  of  the  company  into  a  parliament, 
and  the  company  itself  into  a  commonwealth. 
So  self-suflScient  did  the  colony  become  in  these 
early  years  of  its  history  that  by  1646  Massachu- 
setts could  assert  that  it  owed  only  allegiance 
to  England  and  was  entirely  independent  of  the 
British  Parliament  in  all  matters  of  government, 
in  which  affairs  under  its  charter  it  had  absolute 
power-  Many  denied  this  contention  of  the  lead- 
ers, asserting  that  the  company  was  only  a  corpora- 
tion and  that  any  colonist  had  a  right  of  appeal  to 
England.  Winthrop  refused  definitely  to  recog- 
nize this  right,  and  measures  were  taken  to  purge 
the  colony  of  these  refractory  spirits,  among  whom 
were  Dr.  Robert  Child,  one  of  the  best  educated 
men  of  the  colony,  William  Vassall,  and  Samuel 
Maverick.  All  were  fined,  some  clapped  in  irons, 
and  many  banished.  Child  returned  to  England, 
Vassall  went  to  Barbados,  and  the  rest  were  si- 
lenced. So  menacing  was  the  revolt  that  Edward 
Winslow  was  sent  to  England  to  present  the  case 
to  the  parliamentary  commissioners,  which  he  did 
successfully. 

/But  among  those  who  upheld  the  freedom  of  . 


THE  BAY  COLONY 


the  colony  from  English  interference  and  control 
there  were  many  who  complained  of  the  form 
the  government  was  taking.  /  The  franchise  was 
limited  to  church  members,  which  debarred  five- 
sixths  of  the  population  from  voting  and  holding 
office;  the  magistrates  insisted  on  exercising  a 
negative  vote  upon  the  proceedings  of  the  deputies, 
because  they  deemed  it  necessary  to  prevent  the 
colony  from  degenerating  into  *'a  mere  demo- 
cracyand  the  ministers  or  elders  exercised  an 
influence  in  purely  civil  matters  that  rendered 
them  arbiters  in  all  disputes  between  the  magis- 
trates and  the  deputies.  Until  1634,  the  general 
court  had  been  a  primary  assembly,  but  in  that 
year  representation  was  introduced  and  the  towns 
sent  deputies,  who  soon  began  to  complain  of  the 
meagerness  of  their  powers.  From  this  time  on, 
the  efforts  of  the  deputies  to  reduce  the  authority 
of  the  magistrates  and  to  increase  their  own  were 
continuous  and  insistent.  One  bold  dissenter 
was  barred  from  public  office  in  1635  for  daring 
to  deny  the  magistrates'  claim,  and  others  ex- 
pressed their  fear  that  autocratic  rule  and  a  gover- 
nor for  life  would  endanger  the  liberty  of  the  people. 
The  dominance  of  the  clergy  tended  to  the  main- 
tenance of  an  intolerant  theocracy  and  was  offensive 


40     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

to  many  in  Massachusetts  who,  having  fled  from 
Laud's  intolerance  at  home,  had  no  desire  to  sub- 
mit to  an  equal  intolerance  in  New  England. 
Between  1634  and  1638  the  manifestations  of  this 
dislike  became  conspicuous  and  alarming.  The 
Governor's  son,  the  younger  John  Winthrop, 
dissatisfied  with  the  hard  regime  in  Massachu- 
setts, returned  to  England  in  1634.  Henry  Vane, 
though  elected  Governor  in  1636,  showed  marked 
discontent,  and  when  defeated  the  next  year  left 
the  colony.  The  English  aristocratic  Puritans, 
Saye  and  Sele,  Brooke,  and  others,  who  planned 
to  leave  England  in  1635,  found  themselves  so  out 
of  accord  vith  the  Massachusetts  policy  of  limit- 
ing of  the  suffrage  to  church  members  —  and  to 
church  membership  as  determined  by  the  clergy  — 
that  they  refused  to  go  to  Boston,  and  persisted 
in  their  plan  for  a  settlement  at  Saybrook.  /  The 
Massachusetts  system  had  thus  become  not  a 
constitutional  government  fashioned  after  the 
best  liberal  thought  in  England  of  that  day,  but 
a  narrow  oligarchy  in  which  the  political  order 
was  determined  according  to  a  rigid  interpretation 
of  theology;  This  excessive  theocratic  concen- 
tration of" power  resulted  in  driving  from  the  col- 
ony many  of  its  best  men. 


THE  BAY  COLONY  41 

[More  notorious  even  than  the  poHtical  dissen- 
sions were  the  moral  and  theological  disputes  which 
almost  disrupted  the  colony.!  The  magistrates 
and  elders  did  not  compel  men  to  leave  the  colony 
because  of  political  heresy,  but  they  did  drive 
them  out  because  of  difference  in  matters  of  theo- 
logy. Even  before  the  company  came  over, 
^^ndecott  had  sent  John  and  Samuel  Browne 
back  to  England  because  they  worshiped  accord- 
ing to  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  Morton 
and  six  others  were  banished  in  1630  as  an  im- 
moral influence.  Sir  Christopher  Gardiner,  Philip 
Ratcliffe,  Richard  Wright,  the  Walfords,  and 
Henry  Lynn  were  all  forced  to  leave  in  1630 
and  1631  as  *'unmeete  to  inhabit  here."  Roger 
Williams,  the  tolerationist  and  upholder  of  soul- 
liberty,  who  complained  of  the  magistrates  for 
oppression  and  of  the  elders  for  injustice  and  who 
opposed  the  close  union  of  church  and  state,  was 
compelled  to  leave  during  the  winter  of  1635  and 
1636.  But  the  great  expulsion  came  in  1637, 
when  an  epidemic  of  heresy  struck  the  colony. 
A  synod  at  Newtown  condemned  eighty  erroneous 
opinions,  and  the  general  court  then  disarmed  or 
banished  all  who  persisted  in  error. 
^  A  furor  of  excitement  gathered  about  Anne 


42     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Hutchinson,  who  claimed  to  be  moved  by  the 
spirit  and  denied  that  an  outward  conformity  to 
the  letter  of  the  covenant  was  a  suflScient  test  of 
true  religion  unless  accompanied  with  a  change  in 
the  inner  life.  She  was  a  nonconformist  among 
those  who,  refusing  to  conform  to  the  Church  of 
England,  had  now  themselves  become  conformists 
of  the  strictest  type.  To  Mrs.  Hutchinson  the 
vexatious  legalism  of  Puritanism''  was  as  abhor- 
rent as  had  been  the  practices  of  the  Roman  and 
Anglican  churches  to  the  Puritans,  and,  though 
the  latter  did  not  realize  it,  they  were  as  unjust 
to  her  as  Laud  had  been  to  them.  She  broke 
from  a  covenant  of  works  in  favor  of  a  covenant 
of  grace  and  in  so  doing  defied  the  standing  authori- 
ties and  the  ruling  clergy  of  the  colony.  Her  wit, 
undeniable  power  of  exhortation,  philanthropic 
disposition,  and  personal  attributes  which  gave 
her  an  ascendency  in  the  Boston  church,  drew  to 
her  a  large  following  and  placed  the  supremacy 
of  the  orthodox  party  in  peril.  After  a  long  and 
wordy  struggle  to  check  the  "misgovernment  of 
a  woman's  tongue"  and  to  rebuke  "'the  impudent 
boldness  of  a  proud  dame,"  Mrs^^Iutch^  was 
excommunicated  and  banished;  and  certain  of 
those^wIio^Lipheld  heT^^^^^^'WEeel^^  Coggeshall, 


THE  BAY  COLONY  43 

Aspinwall,  Coddington,  and  Underbill,  all  leading 
men  of  the  colony  —  were  also  forced  to  leave.  In 
Boston  and  the  adjoining  towns  dozens  of  men  were 
disarmed  for  fear  of  a  general  uprising  against  the 
orthodox  government. 

This  discord  put  a  terrible  strain  on  the  colony, 
and  one  marvels  that  it  weathered  the  storm. 
Only  an  iron  discipline  that  knew  neither  charity 
nor  tolerance  could  have  successfully  resisted  the 
attacks  on  the  standing  order.  The  years  from 
1635  to  1638  were  a  critical  time  in  the  history 
of  the  colony,  and  the  unyielding  attitude  of 
magistrates  and  elders  was  due  in  no  small  part 
to  the  danger  of  attack  from  England.  Deter- 
mined, on  the  one  hand,  to  save  the  colony  from 
the  menace  of  Anglican  control,  and,  on  the  other, 
to  prevent  the  admission  of  liberal  and  democratic 
ideas,  they  struggled  to  maintain  the  rule  of  a 
minority  in  behalf  of  a  precise  and  logically  de- 
fined theocratic  system  that  admitted  neither 
experiment  nor  compromise.  For  the  moment 
they  were  successful,  because  the  Cromwellian 
victory  in  England  was  favorable  to  their  cause. 
But  should  independence  be  overthrown  at  home, 
should  religion  cease  to  be  a  deciding  factor  in 
political  quarrels,  and  should  the  monarchy  and 


44     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  Established  Church  gain  ascendency  once 
more,  then  Massachusetts  would  certainly  reap 
the  whirlwind.  The  harvesting  might  be  long  but 
the  garnering  would  be  none  the  less  sure. 


CHAPTER  III 


COMPLETING  THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT 

Through  the  portal  of  Boston  at  one  time  or 
another  passed  all  or  nearly  all  those  who  were 
to  found  additional  colonies  in  New  England;  and 
from  that  portal,  willingly  or  unwillingly,  men 
and  women  journeyed  north,  south,  and  west, 
searching  for  favorable  locations,  buying  land  of 
the  Indians,  and  laying  the  groundwork  for  per- 
manent homes  and  organized  communities.  In 
J:his  way  were  begun  the  colonies  of  Rhode  Island, 
Connecticut,  New  Haven,  and  New  Hampshire, 
^^^^  in  part  from  the  desire  for 

separate  religious  and  political  life  and  in  part 
from  the  migratory  instinct  which  has  always 
characterized  the  Englishman  in  his  effort  to  find 
a  home  and  a  means  of  livelihood.  Sometimes 
individuals  wandered  alone  or  in  groups  of  two 
or  three,  but  more  frequently  covenanted  com- 
panies of  men  and  women  of  like  minds  moved 

45 


THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

across  the  face  of  the  land,  followed  Indian  trails, 
or  voyaged  by  water  along  the  coast  and  up  the 
rivers,  usually  remaining  where  they  first  found 
satisfaction,  but  often,  in  new  combinations, 
taking  up  the  burden  of  their  journeying  and 
moving  on,  a  second,  a  third,  and  even  a  fourth 
time  in  search  of  homes.  Abraham  Pierson  and 
his  flock  migrated  four  times  in  thirty  years, 
seeking  a  place  where  they  might  find  rest  under 
a  government  according  to  God. 

The  frontier  Puritan  was  neither  docile  nor  easily 
satisfied.  He  was  restless,  opinionated,  and  eager 
to  assert  himself  and  his  convictions.  The  con- 
troversies among  the  elect  regarding  doctrines 
and  morals  often  became  so  heated  that  com- 
plete separation  was  the  only  remedy;  and  wher- 
ever there  was  a  migrating  leader  followers  were 
sure  to  be  found.  Hence,  despite  the  dangers 
from  cold,  famine,  the  Indian,  and  the  wilderness, 
the  men  of  New  England  were  constantly  shifting 
in  these  earlier  years  as  one  motive  or  another 
urged  them  on.  Land  was  plentiful,  and,  as  a 
rule,  easily  obtained;  opportunities  for  trade  pre- 
sented themselves  to  any  one  who  would  seek 
them;  and  the  freedom  of  earth  and  sky  and  of 
nature  unspoiled  oflFered  an  ideal  environment  for 


THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT  47 

a  closer  communion  with  God.  Owing  to  the 
many  varieties  of  religious  opinion  that  prevailed 
among  these  radical  pioneers,  each  new  grouping 
and  consequent  settlement  had  an  individuality 
of  its  own,  determined  by  the  personality  of  its 
leader  and  by  the  ideas  that  he  represented.  Thus 
Williams,  Clarke,  Coddington,  and  Gorton  influ- 
enced Rhode  Island;  Hooker,  Haynes,  and  Ludlow, 
Connecticut;  Davenport,  Eaton,  and  Pierson, 
New  Haven;  and  Wheelwright  and  Underhill,  New 
Hampshire. 

BiOger^JWiniams,  the  founder  of  Providence  — 
the  first  plantation  to  be  settled  in  what  was  later 
the  colony  of  Rhode  Island  —  was  driven  out  of 
Boston  because  he  called  in  question  the  author- 
ity of  the  government,  denied  the  legality  of  its 
land  title  as  derived  from  the  King,  and  contested 
the  right  of  the  magistrates  to  deal  with  matters 
ecclesiastical.  Making  his  way  through  the  wil- 
derness in  the  winter  of  1635-1636,  he  finally 
settled  on  the  Mooshassuc  River,  calling  the 
place  Providence;  and  in  the  ensuing  two  years  he 
gathered  about  him  a  number  of  those  who  found 
the  church  system  of  Massachusetts  intolerable 
and  the  Erastian  doctrines  of  the  magistrates, 
according  to  which  the  sins  of  believers  were  to 


48     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

be  punished  by  civil  authority,  distressing  to 
their  consciences.  They  drew  up  a  plantation 
covenant,  promising  to  subject  themselves  "in 
active  or  passive  obedience  to  all  such  orders  or 
agreements"  as  might  be  made  for  the  public 
good  in  an  orderly  way  by  the  majority  vote  of 
the  masters  of  families,  "incorporated  together 
into  a  town  fellowship,'^  but  "only  in  civill  things/' 
Thus  did  the  men  of  Providence  put  into  prac- 
tice their  doctrine  of  a  church  separable  from  the 
state,  and  of  a  political  order  in  which  there  were 
no  magistrates,  no  elders  exercising  civil  as  well 
as  spiritual  authority,  and  no  restraint  on  soul 
liberty. 

A  year  or  two  later  William  Coddington,  loyal 
ally  of  Anne  Hutchinson,  with  others  —  Clarke, 
Coggeshall,  and  Aspinwall,  who  resented  the  ag- 
gressive attitude  of  Boston  —  purchased  from  the 
Indians  the  island  of  Aquidneck  in  Narragansett 
Bay  and  at  the  northern  end  planted  Pocasset, 
afterwards  Portsmouth,  the  second  settlement  in 
the  colony  of  Rhode  Island.  They,  too,  entered 
into  a  covenant  to  join  themselves  into  a  body 
politic  and  elected  Coddington  as  their  judge  and 
five  others  as  elders.  But  this  modeling  of  the  gov- 
ernment after  the  practices  of  the  Old  Testament 


THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT  49 

was  not  pleasing  to  a  majority  of  the  commu- 
nity, which  desired  a  more  democratic  organiza- 
tion. After  a  few  months,  in  the  spring  of  1639, 
Coddington  and  his  followers  therefore  journeyed 
southward  and  established  a  third  settlement  at 
Newport.  Here  the  members  adopted  a  covenant, 
"engaging''  themselves  ''to  bear  equall  charges, 
answerable  to  our  strength  and  estates  in  com- 
mon," and  to  be  governed  "  by  major  voice  of  judge 
and  elders;  the  judge  to  have  a  double  voice." 
Though  differing  from  the  system  as  developed  in 
Massachusetts,  the  Newport  government  at  the 
beginning  had  a  decidedly  theocratic  character. 

The  last  of  the  Rhode  Island  settlements  was 
at  Shawomet,  or  Warwick,  on  the  western  main- 
land at  the  upper  end  of  the  Bay.  There  Samuel 
Gortonj  the  mystic  and  transcendentalist,  one  of 
the  most  individual  of  men  in  an  era  of  striking 
individualities,  after  many  vicissitudes  found  an 
abiding  place.  He  was  of  London,  "a  clothier 
and  professor  of  the  misteries  of  Christ,"  a  believer 
in  established  authority  as  the  surest  guardian  of 
liberty,  and  an  opponent  of  formalism  in  all  its 
varieties.  Arriving  at  Boston  in  1637  at  the 
height  of  the  Hutchinsonian  controversy,  he  had 
sought  liberty  of  conscience,  first  in  Boston,  then 


50     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

in  Plymouth,  and  finally  in  Portsmouth,  where  he 
had  become  a  leader  after  the  withdrawal  of 
Coddington.  But  in  each  place  his  instinct  for 
justice  and  his  too  vociferous  denial  of  the  legality 
of  verdicts  rendered  by  self -constituted  authorities 
led  him  to  seek  further  for  a  home  that  would 
shelter  him  and  his  followers.  No  sooner,  how- 
ever, was  he  settled  at  Shawomet,  than  the  Mass- 
achusetts authorities  laid  claim  to  the  territory, 
and  it  was  only  after  arrest,  imprisonment, 
and  a  narrow  escape  from  the  death  penalty, 
followed  by  a  journey  to  England  and  the  enlist- 
ing of  the  sympathies  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick, 
that  he  made  good  his  claim.  Gorton  returned  in 
1648  with  a  letter  from  Warwick,  as  Lord  Admiral 
and  head  of  the  parliamentary  commission  on  plan- 
tation affairs,  ordering  Massachusetts  to  cease 
molesting  him  and  his  people,  and  he  named  the 
plantation  Warwick  after  his  patron, 

Samuel  Gorton  played  an  influential  and  useful 
part  in  the  later  history  of  the  colony,  and  his 
career  of  peaceful  service  to  Rhode  Island  belies  the 
opinion,  based  on  Winslow's  partisan  pamphlet, 
Hypocrasie  Unmasked^  and  other  contemporary 
writings,  that  he  was  a  blasphemer,  a  "crude  and 
half-crazy  thinker,''  a  "proud  and  pestilent  sedu- 


THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT  51 
cer,"  and  a  "most  prodigious  minter  of  exorbitant 
novelties.''  He  preferred  ''the  universitie  of 
humane  reason  and  reading  of  the  volume  of 
visible  creation''  to  sectarianism  and  convention. 
No  wonder  the  Massachusetts  leaders  could  not 
comprehend  him!  He  questioned  their  infalli- 
bility, their  ecclesiastical  caste,  and  their  theology, 
and  for  their  own  self-preservation  they  were  bound 
to  resist  what  they  deemed  his  heresies. 

Thus  Rhode  Island  at  the  beginning  was  formed 
of  four  separate  and  independent  communities, 
each  in  embryo  a  petty  state,  no  one  of  which  pos- 
sessed at  first  other  than  an  Indian  title  for  its 
lands  and  a  self-made  plantation  covenant  as  the 
warrant  for  its  government.  To  settle  disputes 
over  land  titles  and  to  dispose  of  town  lands,  Prov- 
idence established  in  1640  a  court  of  arbitration 
consisting  of  five  ''disposers,"  who  seem  also  to 
have  served  as  a  sort  of  executive  board  for  the 
town.  In  all  outward  relations  she  remained  iso- 
lated from  her  neighbors,  pursuing  a  course  of 
strictly  local  independence.  Portsmouth  and  New- 
port, for  the  sake  of  greater  strength,  united  in 
March,  1640,  and  a  year  later  agreed  on  a  form  of 
government  which  they  called  "a  democratic  or 
popular  government/'  in  which  none  was  to  be 


52     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

accounted  a  delinquent  for  doctrine/'  They  set 
up  a  governor,  deputy  governor,  and  four  assist- 
ants, regularly  elected,  and  provided  that  all 
laws  should  be  made  by  the  freemen  or  the  major 
part  of  them,  "  orderly  assembled/'  In  the  system 
thus  established  we  can  see  the  influence  of  the 
older  colonies  and  the  beginning  of  a  stronger 
government,  but  at  best  the  experiment  was  half- 
hearted, for  each  town  reserved  to  itself  complete 
control  over  its  own  affairs.  In  1647  Portsmouth 
withdrew  ''to  be  as  free  in  their  transactions  as 
any  other  town  in  the  colony,''  and  the  spirit  of 
separatism  was  still  dominant. 

But  it  soon  became  necessary  for  the  four  towns 
of  what  is  now  Rhode  Island  to  have  something 
more  legal  upon  which  to  base  their  right  to 
exist  than  a  title  derived  from  their  plantation 
covenants  and  Indian  bargains.  Massachusetts 
was  extending  her  claims  southward;  Edward 
Winslow  was  in  England  ready  to  show  that  the 
Rhode  Island  settlements  were  within  the  bounds 
of  the  Plymouth  patent;  and  certain  individuals, 
traders  and  land-seekers,  were  locating  in  the 
Narragansett  country  and  taking  possession  of  the 
soil.  To  combat  these  claims,  Roger  Winiams, 
who  had  so  vehemently  denied  the^vaJidity  of  a 


THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT         53  \ 

royal  patent  a  few  years  before,  but  influenced 
now,  it  may  be,  by  Gorton's  insistence  that  a  legal 
title  could  be  obtaine^^only  from  England,  sailed 
overseas  and  secured-ixQm  the  parliamentary 
coiiimissioners  in  March,  1644,  a^^harter  uniting 
Providence,  Portsmou^^  Newport,  under  the  1^ 
nanTFrrfiVovid^  Narragan- 
sett  Bay,  and  granting  them  powers  of  government. 
For'TIie  moment  even  this  document  had  no 
certain  value,  for,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  par- 
liamentarians were  at  war  with  the  King,  Charles  I 
was  still  sovereign  of  England  and  should  he  win 
in  the  Civil  War  the  title  would  be  worthless)' 
However,  the  patent  was  not  put  in  force  until 
1647,  after  the  victory  of  Cromwell  at  Naseby 
had  given  control  into  the  hands  of  Parliament; 
and  then  a  general  meeting  was  held  at  Ports- 
mouth consisting  of  the  freemen  of  Warwick, 
Portsmouth,  and  Newport,  and  ten  representatives 
from  Providence.  The  patent  did  not  state  how 
affairs  Were  to  be  managed,  and  the  colonials, 
meeting  in  subsequent  assemblies,  worked  out  the 
problem  in  their  own  way.  They  refused  to  have 
a  governor,  and,  creating  only  a  presiding  officer 
with  four  assistants,  constituted  a  court  of  trials 
for  the  hearing  of  important  criminal  and  civil 


54     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

causes.  No  general  court  was  created  by  law,  but 
ajegisla^i^^  soon  came  into  existence  con- 
sisting of  six  deputies  from  each  town.  Before 
this  Portsmouth  meeting  of  1647  adjourned,  it 
adopted  a  code  of  laws  in  which  witchcraft  trials 
and  imgris^BH^ent  for  debt^wereiorbiddgn^  capital 
punishment  waslafgely  abolished,  and  divorce 
was  granted  for  adultery  only.  In  1652,  the 
assembly  passed  a  noteworthy  law  against  the 
holding  of  negrge&^iLsIa^very . 

But  the  new  patent  did  not  bring  peace  to  the 
colony.  In  1649,  Roger  Williams  wrote  to  Gover- 
nor Winthrop:  "Our  poor  colony  is  in  civil  dis- 
sension. Their  last  meeting  [of  the  assembly] 
at  which  I  have  not  been,  have  fallen  into  fac- 
tions. Mr.  Coddington  and  Captain  Partridge, 
etc.,  are  the  heads  of  one,  and  Captain  Clarke, 
Mr.  Easton,  etc.,  the  heads  of  the  other."  What 
had  happened  was  this.  Coddington,  representing 
the  conservative  and  theocratic  wing  of  the  as- 
sembly and  opposing  those  who  were  more  liber- 
ally minded,  had  evidently  applied  to  Massachu- 
setts and  Plymouth  for  support  in  the  effort  to 
obtain  an  independent  government  for  Aquidneck. 
This  plan  would  have  destroyed  what  unity  the 
colony  had  obtained  under  the  patent,  but  Cod^ 


THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT  55 

dington  wished  to  be  governor  of  a  colony  of  his 
own.  Both  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth  were  fav- 
orable to  this  plan,  as  they  hoped  to  further  their 
own  claims  to  the  territory  of  islands  and  mainland. 
Twice  Coddington  made  application  to  the  newly 
formed  Confederation  of  New  England  for  admis- 
sion, but  was  refused  unless  he  would  bring  in  Aquid- 
neck  as  part  of  Massachusetts  or  Plymouth,  the  lat- 
ter of  which  laid  claim  to  it.  CoddijigtoBJtiiiasel^ 
was  willing  to  do  this  but  found  the  opposition  to 
the  plan  so  vehement  that  he  gave  up  the  attempt 
and  went  to  England  to  secure  a  patent  of  his  own. 
After  long  negotiations  he  was  successful  in  his 
quest  and  returned  with  a  document  which  ap- 
pointed him  governor  for  life  with  almost  vice- 
regal powers.  But  he  had  reckoned  without  the 
people  whom  he  was  to  govern.  Learning  of  the 
outcome  of  Coddington's  mission  and  hearing  that 
he  had  had  secret  dealings  also  withJheJ^utch  at 
New^instei:dQ,m,  the  inEabitants  of  the  islands 
rose  m  revolt,  hanged  Captain  Partridge  and 
compelled  Qpddiijgton  to  seek  safetj;;^Jn_flight. 
Williams  again  wenttoHEngliind^^  and  pro- 
cured the  recall  of  Coddington's  commission  and  a 
confirmation  of  his  own  patent,  and  Coddington 
in  1656  gave  in  his  submission  and  was  forgiven* 


56     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

The  early  history  of  Rhode  Island  thus  furnishes 
a  remarkable  exhibition  of  intense  individualism  | 
in  things  religious  and  a  warring  of  disruptive 
forces  in  matters  of  civil  organization. 

Connecticut  was  settled  during  the  years  1634^ 
to  1636  by  people  from  Massachusetts.  Knowl- 
edge of  the  fertile  Connecticut  valley  had  come 
early  to  the  Dutch,  who  had  planted  a  block-house, 
the  House  of  Good  Hope,  at  the  southeast  corner 
of  the  land  upon  which  Hartford  now  stands. » 
Plymouth,  too,  in  searching  for  advantageous 
trade  openings  had  sent  out  one  William  Holmes, 
who  sailed  past  the  Dutch  fort  and  took  possession 
of  the  site  of  Windsor.  In  the  autumn  of  1634 
a  certain  John  Oldham,  trader  and  rover  and 
frequent  disturber  of  the  Puritan  peace,  came  with 
a  few  companions  and  began  to  occupy  andv^cul- 
tivate  lands  within  the  bounds  of  modern  Weth- 
ersfield.  Settlers  continued  to  arrive  from 
Massachusetts,  either  by  land  or  by  water,  act- 
uated by  land-hunger  and  stirred  to  movement 
westward  by  the  same  driving  impulse  that  for 
years  to  come  was  to  populate  the  frontier  wherever 
it  stretched.  The  territory  thus  possessed  was 
claimed  at  first  by  Massachusetts,  on  the  theory 
that  the  southern  line   of  the  colony,  if  ex- 


THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT  57^ 

tended  westward,  would  include  this  portion  of 
the  Connecticut  River.  It  was  also  claimed  by 
the  group  of  English  lords  and  gentlemen,  Saye 
and  Sele,  Brooke,  and  other  Puritans,  who,  as 
they  supposed,  had  obtained  through  the  Earl 
of  Warwick  from  the  New  England  Council  a 
grant  of  land  extending  west  and  southwest  from 
Narragansett  Bay  forty  leagues.  These  claims 
were  of  course  irreconciliable,  but  the  English  lords, 
in  order  to  assert  their  title,  sent  over  in  1635  twenty 
servants,  known  as  the  Stiles  party,  who  reached 
Connecticut  in  the  summer  of  that  year.  Thus 
by  autumn  there  were  on  the  ground  four  sets 
ofTTvaT  claimants:  the  Dutch,  the  Plymouth 
traders,  various  emigrants  from  Massachusetts, 
chiefly  from  the  town  of  Dorchester,  and  the 
Stiles  party,  representing  the  English  lords  and 
gentlemen.  Their  relations  were  not  harmonious, 
|or  the  Dutch  tried  to  drive  out  the  Plymouth 
traders,  and  the  latter  resented  in  their  turn  the 
attempt  of  the  Dorchester  men  to  occupy  their 
lands. 

The  matter  was  to  be  settled  not  by  force  but 
by  weight  of  numbers  and  soundness  of  title. 
In  1635,  a  new  and  larger  migration  was  under 
consideration  in   Massachusetts,   prompted  by 


58     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

various  motives:  partly  personal,  as  shown  in 
the  rivalries  of  strong  men  in  a  colony  already 
overstocked  with  leaders;  partly  material,  as 
indicated  by  the  desire  for  wider  fields  for  culti- 
vation and  especially  good  pasture;  and  partly 
political,  as  evidenced  by  the  dislike  on  the  part 
of  many  for  the  power  of  the  elders  and  magistrates 
in  Massachusetts  and  by  the  strong  inclination  of 
masterful  men  toward  a  government  of  their  own. 
Thomas  Hooker,  the  pastor  of  the  Newtown 
church,  John  Haynes,  the  Governor  of  Massachu- 
setts in  1635,  and  Roger  Ludlow,  a  former  magis- 
trate and  deputy  governor  who  had  failed  of 
election  to  the  magistracy  in  the  same  year,  were 
the  leaders  of  the  movement  and,  if  we  may  judge 
from  later  events,  were  believers  in  certain  political 
ideas  that  were  not  finding  application  in  the  Bay 
Colony.  Disappointed  because  of  the  rigidity  of 
the  Massachusetts  system,  they  seem  to  have 
waited  for  an  opportunity  to  put  into  practice 
the  principles  which  they  believed  essential  to  the 
true  government  of  a  people. 

When  the  decision  was  finally  reached  and 
certain  of  the  inhabitants  of  Newtown,  Water- 
town,  and  Roxbury  were  ready  to  enter  on  their 
removal,  the  question  naturally  arose  as  to  the 


THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT  59 

title  to  the  territory.  In  June,  1635,  Massachu- 
setts had  asserted  her  claim  by  exercising  a  sort 
of  supervision  over  those  who  had  already  gone  to 
Connecticut;  but  in  October  John  Winthrop,  Jr.^ 
the  Reverend  Hugh  Peters,  and  Henry  Vane  ar- 
rived from  England  with  authority  from  the  lords 
and  gentlemen  to  push  their  claim,  and  Winthrop 
actually  bore  a  commission  as  governor  of  the  en- 
tire territory,  which  included  Connecticut.  It  is 
hardly  possible  that  Hooker  and  Haynes  would 
have  ignored  the  demands  of  these  agents,  and  yet 
to  acknowledge  Winthrop  as  their  governor  would 
have  been  to  accept  a  head  who  was  not  of  their 
own  choosing.  In  all  probability  some  arrange- 
ment was  made  with  Winthrop,  according  to 
which  the  Englishmen's  title  to  the  lands  was 
recognized  but  at  the  same  time  the  Connecticut 
settlers  were  to  have  full  powers  of  self-govern- 
ment, and  the  question  of  a  governor  was  left  for 
the  moment  undecided,  Winthrop  confining  his 
jurisdiction  to  Saybrook,  the  settlement  which 
he  was  to  promote  at  the  mouth  of  the  river. 
This  agreement  was  embodied  in  a  commission 
which  was  drawn  up  by  the  Massachusetts  General 
Court  and  issued  in  March,  1636,  "'on  behalf  of 
our  said  members  and  John  Winthrop,  Jr.,"  and 


60     THE  FATHERS  OP  NEW  ENGLAND 

was  to  last  for  one  year.  Who  actually  wrote 
this  commission  we  do  not  know,  but  the  Connecti- 
cut men  said  afterwards  that  it  arose  from  the 
desire  of  the  people  who  removed,  because  they 
did  not  want  to  go  away  without  a  frame  of  govern- 
ment agreed  on  beforehand  and  did  not  want  to 
recognize  ''any  claymes  of  the  Massachusetts 
jurisdiction  over  them  by  vertew  of  Patent/' 
Apparently  the  people  going  to  Connecticut 
wanted  to  get  as  far  away  from  Massachusetts 
as  possible. 

Armed  with  their  commission,  in  the  summer  of 
1636,  members  of  the  Newtown  church  to  the 
number  of  about  one  hundred  persons,  led  by 
Thomas  Hooker,  their  pastor,  and  Samuel  Stone, 
his  assistant,  made  a  famous  pilgrimage  under 
summer  skies  through  the  woods  that  lay  between 
Massachusetts  and  the  Connecticut  River.  Bear- 
ing Mrs.  (^oke^in  a  litter  and  driving  their  cattle 
before  them,  these  courageous  pioneers,  men, 
women,  and  children,  after  a  fortnight's  journey- 
ing, reached  Hartford,  the  site  of  their  future 
home,  already  occupied  by  those  who  had  fore- 
gathered there  in  number  larger  even  than  those 
who  had  newly  arrived.  At  about  the  same  time, 
William  Pynchon  and  others  of  Roxbury,  acting 


THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT  61 

from  similar  motives,  took  the  same  course 
westward,  but  instead  of  continuing  down  the 
Connecticut  River,  as  the  others  had  done, 
stopped  at  its  banks  and  made  their  settlement  at 
Agawam  (Springfield),  where  they  built  a  ware- 
house and  a  wharf  for  use  in  trade  with  the  Indians. 
The  lower  settlements,  Hartford,  Wethersfield,  and 
Windsor,  became  agricultural  communities;  but 
Springfield,  standing  at  the  junction  of  Indian 
trails  and  river  communication,  was  destined  to 
become  the  center  of  the  beaver  trade  of  the  region, 
shipping  furs  and  receiving  commodities  through 
Boston,  either  in  shallops  around  the  Cape  or  on 
pack-horses  overland  by  the  path  the  emigrants 
had  trod.  Pynchon's  settlement  was  one  of  the 
towns  named  in  the  commission  and,  for  the  first 
year  after  it  was  founded,  joined  with  the  others 
in  maintaining  order  in  the  colony. 

The  commission  government  came  to  an  end 
in  March,  1637,  and  there  is  reason  to  think  that 
during  the  last  month,  an  election  of  committees 
took  place  in  Hartford,  Wethersfield,  and  Wind- 
sor, which  would  show  that  the  Connecticut  settlers 
were  exercising  the  privilege  of  the  franchise  more 
than  a  year  before  Hooker  preached  his  famous 
sermon  declaring  that  the  right  of  government  lay 


62     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

in  the  people.  There  also  is  some  reason  to  think 
that  the  leaders  were  still  undecided  whether  or 
not  to  come  to  an  agreement  with  the  English 
lords  and  gentlemen  and  to  put  themselves  under 
the  latter's  jurisdiction.  But  as  Winthrop's  com- 
mission expired  at  the  end  of  a  year  and  no  new 
governor  was  appointed  —  the  English  Puritans 
having  become  absorbed  in  affairs  at  home  — 
the  Connecticut  colony  was  thrown  on  its  own 
resources  and  compelled  to  set  up  a  government 
of  its  own.  Pynchon  at  Springfield  now  cast  in 
his  lot  with  Massachusetts,  and  from  this  time 
forward  Springfield  was  a  part  of  the  Massachu- 
setts colony,  but  the  men  of  Connecticut,  disliking 
Pynchon's  desertion,  determined  to  act  for  them- 
selves. On  May  31,  1638,  Hooker  preached  a 
sermon  laying  down  the  principles  according  to 
which  government  should  be  established;  and 
during  the  six  months  that  followed,  the  court, 
consisting  of  six  magistrates  and  nine  deputies, 
framed  the  Fundamental  Orders,  the  laws  that 
were  to  govern  the  colony. 


iThis  remarkable  document,  though  deserving 
all  the  encomiums  passed  upon  it,  was  not  a  con- 
stitution in  any  modern  sense  of  the  word  and 
established  nothing  fundamentally  new,  because 


THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT  63 

the  form  of  government  it  outlined  differed  only 
in  certain  particulars  from  that  of  Massachusetts 
and  Plymoutjhu]  It  was  made  up  of  two  parts,  a 
preamble,  which  is  a  plantation  covenant  like 
that  signed  in  the  cabin  of  the  MayfloweVy  and  a 
series  of  laws  or  orders  passed  either  separately 
or  together  by  the  court  which  drafted  them.  This 
court  was  a  lawmaking  body  and  it  made  public 
the  laws  when  they  were  passed.  That  this  body 
of  laws  or,  as  we  may  not  improperly  call  it,  this 
frame  of  government  was  ratified,  as  Trumbull 
says,  by  all  the  free  planters  assembled  at  Hartford 
on  January  14,  1639,  is  not  impossible,  though 
such  action  would  seem  unnecessary  as  the  court 
was  a  representative  body,  and  unlikely  as  the 
time  of  year  was  not  favorable  for  holding  a  mass- 
meeting  at  Hartford.  Later  courts  never  hesi- 
tated to  change  the  articles  without  referring 
the  changes  to  the  planters.  The  articles  simply 
confirmed  the  system  of  magistrates  and  deputies 
already  in  existence  and  added  provisions  for  the 
election  of  a  governor  and  deputy  governor  — 
who  had  not  hitherto  been  chosen  because  of 
doubts  regarding  the  jurisdiction  of  the  English 
lords  and  gentlemen. 

j  In  matters  of  detail  the  Connecticut  system 


64      THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

differed  from  that  of  Massachusetts  in  three 
particulars :  it  imposed  no  religious  test  for  those 
entitled  to  vote,  but  required  only  that  the 
governor  be  a  church  member,  though  it  is  prob- 
able that  in  practice  only  those  would  be  admitted 
freemen  who  were  covenanted  Christians;  it  gave 
less  power  to  the  magistrates  and  more  to  the 
freemen;  and  it  placed  the  election  of  the  governor 
in  the  hands  of  the  voters,  limiting  their  choice 
only  to  a  church  member  and  a  former  magistrate, 
and  forbidding  reelection  until  after  the  expira- 
tion of  a  year.  Later  the  qualifications  of  a 
freeman  were  made  such  that  only  about  one  in 
every  two  or  three  voted  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury; the  powers  of  the  magistrates  were  increased; 

.and  the  governor  was  allowed  to  succeed  himself. 

^  Connecticut  was  less  democratic  than  Rhode 
Island  in  the  seventeenth  century  and,  as  the  years 
went  on,  fewer  and  fewer  of  the  inhabitants  exer- 
cised the  freeman's  privilege  of  voting  for  the 
higher  oflBcials.  By  no  stretch  of  the  imagination 
can  the  political  conditions  in  any  of  the  New  Eng- 
land colonies  be  called  popular  or  democratic. 
Government  was  in  the  hands  of  a  very  few  men.J 
Two  more  settlements  remain  to  be  considered 
before  a  survey  of  the  foundations  of  New  England 


THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT  65 

can  be  called  complete.  When  the  Reverend  John 
Wheelwright,  the  friend  of  Anne  Hutchinson, 
was  driven  from  Massachusetts  and  took  his  way 
northward  to  the  region  of  Squamscott  Falls 
where  he  founded  Exeter,  he  entered  a  territory 
of  grants  and  claims  and  rights  of  possession  that 
render  the  early  history  of  New  Hampshire  a 
tangle  of  difficulties.  Out  of  a  grant  to  Gorges 
and  Mason  of  the  stretch  of  coast  between  the 
Merrimac  and  the  Kennebec  in  1622,  and  a  con- 
firmation of  Mason's  right  to  the  region  between 
the  Merrimac  and  the  Piscataqua,  arose  the  settle- 
ment of  Strawberry  Bank,  or  Portsmouth,  and 
accompanying  it  a  controversy  over  the  title  to 
the  soil  that  lasted  throughout  the  colonial  period. 
Mason  called  his  territory  New  Hampshire; 
Gorges  planned  to  call  the  region  that  he  received 
New  Somersetshire;  and  both  designations  took 
root,  one  as  the  name  of  a  colony,  the  other  as 
that  of  a  county  in  Maine.  At  an  earlier  date, 
merchants  of  Bristol  and  Shrewsbury  had  become 
interested  in  this  part  of  New  England  and  had 
sent  over  one  Edward  Hilton,  who  some  time 
before  1627  began  a  settlement  at  Dover.  The 
share  of  the  Bristol  merchants  was  purchased  in 
1633  by  the  English  lords  and  gentlemen  already 


66     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAlSiD 

concerned  in  the  Connecticut  settlement,  for  the 
purpose,  it  may  be,  of  furnishing  another  refuge 
in  New  England,  should  conditions  at  home  de- 
mand their  withdrawal  overseas.  But  nothing 
came  of  their  purchase  except  an  unfortunate 
controversy  with  Plymouth  colony  over  trading 
boundaries  on  the  Kennebec. 

The  men  established  on  this  northern  frontier 
were  often  lawless  and  diflacult  to  control,  of  loose 
habits  and  morals,  and  intent  on  their  own  profit; 
and  the  region  itself  was  inhospitable  to  organized 
and  settled  government.  Yet  out  of  these  some- 
what nebulous  beginnings,  four  settlements  arose 
—  Portsmouth  (Masonian  and  Anglican),  Dover 
(Anglican  and  Puritan),  Exeter  and  Hampton 
(both  Puritan),  each  with  its  civil  compact  and 
each  an  independent  town.  The  inhabitants  were 
few  in  number,  and  "the  generality,  of  mean 
and  low  estates,''  and  little  disposed  to  union 
among  themselves.  But  in  1638-1639,  when 
Massachusetts  discovered  that  one  interpreta- 
tion of  her  charter  would  carry  her  northern 
boundary  to  a  point  above  them,  she  took  them 
under  her  protecting  wing.  After  considerable 
debate  this  jurisdiction  was  recognized  and  the 
New  Hampshire  and  Maine  towns  were  brought 


THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT  67 

within  her  boundaries.  Henceforth,  for  many 
years  a  number  of  these  towns,  though  in  part 
Angh'can  communities  and  never  burdened  with 
the  requirement  that  their  freemen  be  church 
members,  were  represented  in  the  general  court 
at  Boston.  Nevertheless  the  Mason  and  Gorges 
adherents  —  whose  Anglican  and  pro-monarchical 
sympathies  were  hostile  to  Puritan  control  and  who 
were  supported  by  the  persistent  efforts  of  the 
Mason  family  in  England  —  were  able  to  obtain  the 
separation  of  New  Uamsphire  from  Massachusetts 
in  1678.  Maine,  however,  remained  a  part  of 
the  Bay  Colony  to  the  end  of  the  colonial  period. 
**The  circumstances  attending  the  settlement  of 
New  Haven  were  wholly  unlike  those  of  New 
Hampshire.  John  Davenport,  a  London  clergy- 
man of  an  extreme  Puritan  type,  Theophilus 
Eaton,  a  London  merchant  in  the  Baltic  trade 
and  a  member  of  the  Eastland  Company,  Samuel 
Eaton  and  John  Lathrop,  two  non -conforming 
ministers,  were  the  leaders  of  the  movement. 
Lathrop  never  went  to  New  Haven,  and  Samuel 
Eaton  early  returned  to  England.  The  leaders 
and  many  of  their  followers  were  men  of  consider- 
able property  for  that  day,  and  their  interest  in 
trade  gave  to  the  colony  a  marked  commercial 


68     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

character.  The  company  was  composed  of  men 
and  women  from  London  and  its  vicinity,  and  of 
others  who  joined  them  from  Kent,  Hereford, 
and  Yorkshire.  As  both  Davenport  and  Theo- 
philus  Eaton  were  members  of  the  Massachusetts 
Bay  Company,  they  were  familiar  with  its  work; 
and  on  coming  to  America  in  June,  1637,  they 
stopped  at  Boston  and  remained  there  during  the 
winter.  Pressure  was  brought  upon  them  to 
make  Massachusetts  their  home,  but  without 
success,  for  though  Davenport  had  much  in  com- 
mon with  the  Massachusetts  people,  he  was  not 
content  to  remain  where  he  would  be  merely  one 
among  many.  Desiring  a  free  place  for  worship 
and  trade,  he  sent  Eaton  voyaging  to  find  one; 
and  the  latter,  who  had  heard  of  Quinnipiac  on 
the  Connecticut  shore,  viewed  this  spot  and  re- 
ported favorably.  In  March,  1638,  the  company 
set  sail  from  Boston  and  laid  the  foundatioiis.of 
the  town  of  New  Haven. 

This  company  had  neither  charter  nor  land 
grant,  and,  as  far  as  we  know,  it  had  made  no  at- 
tempt to  obtain  either.  "The  first  planters," 
says  Kingsley,  "recognized  in  their  acts  no  human 
authority  foreign  to  themselves.*'  Unlike  the 
Pilgrims  in  their  Mayflower  compact,  they  made 


THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT  69 

no  reference  in  their  plantation  covenant  to  the 
dread  sovereign.  King  James,  and  in  none  of  their 
acts  and  statements  did  they  express  a  longing 
for  their  native  country  or  regard  for  its  authority. 
Their  settlement  bears  some  resemblance  to  that 
of  the  Rhode  Island  towns,  but  it  was  better 
organized  and  more  orderly  from  the  beginning. 
The  "settlers  may  have  drawn  up  their  covenant 
before  leaving  Boston  and  may  have  reached  Quin- 
nipiac  as  a  community  already  united  in  a  common 
civil  and  religious  bond.  Their  lands,  which  they 
purchased  from  the  Indians,  they  laid  out  in 
their  own  way.  The  next  year  on  June  4,  1639, 
they  held  a  meeting  in  Robert  Newman's  barn 
and  there,  declaring  that  the  Word  of  God  should 
be  their  guide  in  families  and  commonwealth 
and  that  only  church  members  should  be  sharers 
in  government,  they  chose  twelve  men  as  the  foun- 
dations of  their  church  state.  Two  months  later 
these  twelve  selected  "seven  pillars''  who  proceeded 
to  organize  a  church  by  associating  others  with 
themselves.  Under  the  leadership  of  the  seven 
the  government  continued  until  October,  when  they 
resigned  and  a  gathering  of  the  church  members 
elected  Theophilus  Eaton  as  their  magistrate  and 
four  others  to  act  as  assistants,  with  a  secretary 


70      THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

and  a  treasurer.  Thus  was  begun  a  form  of 
government  which  when  perfected  was  very  simi- 
lar to  that  of  the  other  New  England  colonies. 

While  New  Haven  as  a  town-colony  was  taking 
on  form,  other  plantations  were  arising  near  by. 
Milford  was  settled  partly  from  New  Haven  and 
partly  from  Wethersfield,  where  an  overplus  of 
clergy  was  leading  to  disputes  and  many  with- 
drawals to  other  parts.  Guilford  was  settled  di- 
rectly from  England.  Southold  on  Long  Island  was 
settled  also  from  England,  by  way  of  New  Haven. 
Stamford  had  its  origin  in  a  Wethersfield  quarrel, 
when  the  Reverend  Richard  Denton,  ''blind  of  one 
eye  but  not  the  least  among  the  seers  of  Israel," 
departed  with  his  flock.  Branford  also  was 
born  of  a  Wethersfield  controversy  and  later 
received  accessions  from  Long  Island.  In  1643, 
Milford,  Guilford,  and  Stamford  combined  under 
the  common  jurisdiction  of  New  Haven,  to  which 
Southold  and  Branford  acceded  later  with  a  form 
of  government  copied  after  that  of  Massachusetts, 
though  the  colony  was  distinctly  federal  in  charac- 
ter, consisting  of  ''the  government  of  New  Haven 
with  the  plantations  in  combination  therewith.*' 
Though  there  was  no  special  reservation  of  town 
rights  in  the  fundamental  articles  which  defined 


THE  WORK  OF  SETTLEMENT  71 

the  government,  yet  the  towns,  five  in  number, 
considered  themselves  free  to  withdraw  at  any 
time  if  they  so  desired. 

We  have  thus  reviewed  the  conditions  under 
which  some  forty  towns,  grouped  under  five  juris- 
dictions, were  founded  in  New  England.  They 
were  destined  to  treble  their  number  in  the  next 
generation  and  to  suffer  such  regrouping_as  to 
reduce  the  jurisdictions  to  four  before  the  end  of 
the  century  —  New  Hampshire  separating  from 
Massachusetts,  New  Haven  being  absorbed  by 
Tlonnecticut,  and  Plymouth  submitting  to  the 
authority  of  Massachusetts  under  the  charter  of 
1691.  In  this  readjustment  we  have  the  origin  of 
four  of  the  six  New  England  States  of  the  present 
day.       I'd  ' 


CHAPTER  IV 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE 

The  people  who  inhabited  these  little  New  Eng- 
land towns  were  from  nearly  every  grade  of  Eng- 
lish society,  ^but  the  greater  number  were  men  and 
women  of  humble  birth  —  laborers,  artisans,  and 
petty  farmers  —  drawn  from  town  and  country, 
possessed  of  scanty  education,  little  or  no  financial 
capital,  and  but  slight  experience  with  the  larger 
world.  Some  were  middle-class  lawyers,  mer- 
chants, and  squires;  a  few,  but  very  few,  were  of 
higher  rank,  while  scores  were  of  the  soil,  coarse 
in  language  and  habits,  and  given  to  practices 
characteristic  of  the  peasantry  of  England  at  that 
time.  The  fact  that  hardly  a  fifth  of  those  in 
Massachusetts  were  professed  Christians  renders 
it  doubtful  how  far  religious  convictions  were  the 
only  driving  motive  that  sent  hundreds  of  these 
men  to  New  England.  The  leaders  were,  in  a 
majority  of  cases,  university  men  familiar  with 

72 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  73 

good  literature  and  possessed  of  good  libraries, 
but  more  cognizant  of  theology  and  philosophy 
than  of  the  law  and  order  of  nature,  i  Some  were 
professional  soldiers,  simple  in  thought  as  they 
were  courageous  in  action,  while  others  were  men 
of  affairs,  who  had  acquired  experience  before  the 
courts  and  in  the  counting  houses  of  England  and 
were  often  amazingly  versatile,  able  to  turn  their 
hands  to  any  business  that  confronted  them. 
For  the  great  majority  there  was  little  opportunity 
in  these  early  years  to  practice  a  trade  or  a  profes- 
sion. Except  for  the  clergy,  who  could  preach 
in  America  with  greater  freedom  than  in  England, 
and  for  the  occasional  practitioner  in  physic  or 
the  law  who  as  time  went  on  found  occasion  to 
apply  his  knowledge  in  the  household  and  the 
courts,  there  was  little  else  for  any  one  to  do  than 
engage  in  farming,  fishing,  and  trading  with  the 
Indians,  or  turn  carpenter  and  cobbler  according 
to  demand.  The  artisan  became  a  farmer,  though 
still  preserving  his  knack  as  a  craftsman,  and  ex- 
pended his  skill  and  his  muscle  in  subduing  a  tough 
and  unbroken  soil. 

New  England  was  probably  overstocked  with 
men  of  strong  minds  and  assertive  dispositions. 
It  was  settled  by  radicals  who  would  never  have 


74      THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

left  the  mother  country  had  they  not  possessed 
well-formed  opinions  regarding  some  of  the  most 
important  aspects  of  religious  and  social  life. 
We  may  call  them  all  Puritans,  but  as  to  the 
details  of  their  Puritanism  they  often  differed  as 
widely  as  did  Roundheads  and  Cavaliers  in  Eng- 
land. Though  representative  of  a  common  move- 
ment, they  were  far  from  united  in  their  beliefs 
or  consistent  in  their  political  practices.  There 
was  always  something  of  the  inquisitor  at  Boston 
and  of  the  monk  at  Plymouth,  and  in  all  the  Puri- 
tan colonies  there  prevailed  a  self-satisfied  sense 
of  importance  as  the  chosen  of  God.  The  contro- 
versies that  arose  over  jurisdictions  and  bounda- 
ries and  the  niceties  of  doctrine  are  not  edifying, 
however  honest  may  have  been  those  who  entered 
into  them.  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  always 
showed  a  disposition  to  stretch  their  demands  for 
territory  to  the  utmost  and  to  take  what  they  could, 
sometimes  with  little  charity  or  forbearance^  The 
dominance  of  the  church  over  the  organization  and 
methods  of  government  and  the  rigid  scrutiny  of  in- 
dividual lives  and  habits,  of  which  the  leaders,  nota- 
bly those  of  Massachusetts,  approved,  were  hardly 
in  accord  with  democracy  or  personal  liberty,  j  Of 
toleration,  except  in  Rhode  Island,  there  was  noneT) 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  75 

/The  unit  of  New  En^and  life  was  the  town,  a 
self-governing  community,  in  large  measure  com- 
plete in  itself,  and  if  left  alone  capable  of  main- 
taining a  separate  existence.  /  Within  certain 
limits,  it^w^s^nd^pende^^^^^^^  higher  authority, 
and  in  this  respect  it  was  unlike  anything  to  be 
found  in  England.  At  this  jgeriod,  it  was  at 
bottom  a  religious  community  which  owned  and 
distributed  the  lands  set  apart  for  its  occupation, 
elected  its  own  officials,  and  passed  local  ordi- 
nances for  its  own  well-being.  At  first,  church 
members,  landholders,  and  inhabitants  tended  to 
be  identical,  but  they  gradually  separated  as  time 
went  on  and  as  new  comers  appeared  and  old  resi- 
dents migrated  elsewhere.  Before  the  end  of  the 
century,  the  ecclesiastical  society,  the  board  of 
land  proprietors,  and  the  town  proper,  even  when 
largely  composed  of  the  same  members,  acted 
as  separate  groups,  though  the  line  of  separation 
was  often  vague  and  was  sometimes  not  drawn  at 
all.  Town  meetings  continued  to  be  held  in  the 
meeting-house,  and  land  was  distributed  by  the 
town  in  its  collective  capacity.  Lands  were  par- 
celed out  as  they  were  needed  in  proportion  to  con- 
tributions to  a  common  purchase  fund  or  to  family 
need,  and  later  according  to  the  ratable  value  of 


76      THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

a  man's  property.  The  fathers  of  Wallingford 
in  Connecticut,  "considering  that  even  single 
persons  industrious  and  laborious  might  through 
the  blessing  of  God  increase  and  grow  into  fami- 
lies/' distributed  to  the  meanest  bachelor  "such 
a  quantity  of  land  as  might  in  an  ordinary  way 
serve  for  the  comfortable  maintenance  of  a  family." 
Sometimes  allotments  were  equal;  often  they 
varied  greatly  in  size,  from  an  acre  to  fifty  acres 
and  even  more;  but  always  they  were  determined 
by  a  desire  to  be  fair  and  just.  The  land  was 
granted  in  full  right  and  could  be  sold  or  be- 
queathed, though  at  first  only  with  the  consent 
of  the  community.  With  the  grant  generally 
went  rights  in  woodland  and  pasture;  and  even 
meadow  land,  after  the  hay  was  got  in,  was  open 
to  the  use  of  the  villagers.  The  early  New  Eng- 
land town  took  into  consideration  the  welfare  and 
contentment  of  the  individual,  but  it  rated  as  of 
even  greater  importance  the  interests  of  the  whole 
body. 

The  settlements  of  New  England  inevitably  pre- 
sented great  variations  of  local  life  and  color, 
stretching  as  they  did  from  the  Plymouth  truck- 
ing posts  in  Maine,  through  the  fishing  villages  of 
Saco  and  York,  and  those  on  the  Piscataqua,  to  the 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  77 

towns  of  Long  Island  and  the  frontier  com- 
munities of  western  Connecticut  —  Stamford  and 
Greenwich.  /The  inhabitants  to  the  number  of 
more  than  thirty  thousand  in  1640  were  not  only 
in  possession  of  the  coast  but  were  also  pushing 
their  way  into  the  interior.  To  fishing  and  agri- 
culture they  added  trading,  lumbering,  and  com- 
merce, and  were  constantly  reaching  out  for 
new  lands  and  wider  opportunities.  The  Pil- 
grims had  hardly  weathered  their  first  hard  winter 
when  they  rebuilt  one  of  their  shallops  and  sent 
it  northward  on  fishing  and  trading  voyages; 
and  later  they  sent  one  bark  up  the  Connecticut 
and  another  to  open  up  communication  with  the 
Dutch  at  New  Amsterdam.  Pynchon  was  mak- 
ing Springfield  the  centre  of  the  fur  trade  of  the 
interior,  though  an  overcrowding  of  merchants 
there  was  reducing  profits  and  compelling  the 
settlers  to  resort  to  agriculture  for  a  living.  Of 
all  the  colonies.  New  Haven  was  the  most  dis- 
tinctly commercial.'  Stephen  Goodyear  built  a 
trucking  house  on  an  island  below  the  great  falls 
of  the  Housatonic  in  1642;  other  New  Haven 
colonists  engaged  in  ventures  on  Delaware  Bay; 
and  in  1645,  the  colony  endeavored  to  open  a 
direct  trade  with  England.    But  nearly  every 


78     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

New  Haven  enterprise  failed,  and  by  1660  the 
wealth  of  the  colony  had  materially  diminished 
and  the  settlement  had  become  little  else  than 
a  colony  of  discouraged  farmers/*  Among  all  the 
colonies  in  New  England  and  elsewhere  there 
was  considerable  coasting  traffic,  and  vessels 
went  to  Newfoundland  and  Bermuda,  and  even 
to  the  distant  West  Indies,  to  Madeira,  and  to 
Bilboa  across  the  ocean.  Ever  since  Winthrop 
built  the  Blessing  of  the  Bay  in  1631,  the  first  sea- 
going craft  launched  in  New  England,  Massa- 
chusetts had  been  the  leading  commercial  colony, 
and  her  vessels  occasionally  made  the  long  tri- 
angular voyage  to  Jamaica,  and  England,  and 
back  to  the  Bay.  The  vessels  carried  planks,  pipe 
staves,  furs,  fish,  and  provisions,  and  exchanged 
them  for  sugar,  molasses,  household  goods,  and 
other  wares  and  commodities  needed  for  the 
comfort  and  convenience  of  the  colonists. 

The  older  generation  was  passing  away.  By 
1660,  Winthrop,  Cotton,  Hooker,  Haynes,  Brad- 
ford, and  Whiting  were  dead;  Davenport  and 
Roger  Williams  were  growing  old;  some  of  the 
ablest  men,  Peters,  Ludlow,  Whitfield,  Desborough, 
Hooke,  had  returned  to  England,  and  others  less 
conspicuous  had  gone  to  the  West  Indies  or  to 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  79 

the  adjacent  colonies.  ^  The  younger  men  were 
coming  on,  new  arrivals  were  creeping  in,  and  a 
loosening  of  the  old  rigidity  was  affecting  the  social 
order.  ]  The  Cambridge  platform  of  1648,  which 
embodied  the  orthodox  features  of  the  Congrega- 
tional system  as  determined  up  to  that  time,  gave 
place  to  the  Half-Way  Covenant  of  1657  and  1662, 
which  owed  its  rise  to  the  coming  to  maturity  of 
the  second  generation,  the  children  of  the  first 
settlers,  now  admitted  to  membership  but  not 
to  full  communion  —  a  wide  departure  from  the 
original  purpose  of  the  founders.  Rhode  Island 
continued  to  be  the  colony  of  separatism  and 
soul  liberty,  where  Seeker,  Generalist,  Anabap- 
tist, and  religious  anarchist  of  the  William  Harris 
type  found  place,  though  not  always  peace.  Cot- 
ton Mather  later  said  there  had  never  been  "such 
a  variety  of  religions  together  on  so  small  a  spot 
as  there  have  been  in  that  colony." 

The  coming  of  the  Quakers  to  Boston  in  1656, 
bringing  with  them  as  they  did  some  of  the  very 
religious  ideas  that  had  caused  Mrs.  Hutchinson 
and  John  Wheelwright  to  be  driven  into  exile, 
revived  anew  the  old  issue  and  roused  the  ortho- 
dox colonies  to  deny  admission  to  ranters,  her- 
etics, Quakers,  and  the  like.  Boston  burned  their 


80     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

books  as  corrupt,  heretical,  and  blasphemous,'* 
flung  these  people  into  prison  with  every  mark 
of  indignity,  branded  them  as  enemies  of  the 
established  order  in  church  and  commonwealth, 
and  tried  to  prove  that  they  were  witches  and 
emissaries  of  Satan.  The  first-comers  were  sent 
back  to  Barbados  whence  they  came;  the  next 
were  returned  to  England;  those  of  1657  were 
scourged;  those  of  1658,  under  the  Massachusetts 
law  of  the  previous  year,  were  mutilated  and,  when 
all  these  measures  had  no  effect,  under  the  harsher 
law  of  October,  1658,  four  were  hanged.  One 
of  these,  Mary  Dyer,  though  reprieved  and  ban- 
ished, persisted  in  returning  to  her  death.  The 
Quakers  were  scourged  in  Plymouth,  branded  in 
New  Haven,  flogged  at  the  cart's  tail  on  Long 
Island,  and  chained  to  a  wheelbarrow  at  New 
Amsterdam.  Upon  Connecticut  they  made  al- 
most no  impression;  only  in  Piscataqua,  Rhode 
Island,  Nantucket,  and  Eastern  Long  Island  did 
they  find  a  resting  place. 

To  the  awe  inspired  by  the  covenant  with  God 
was  added  the  terror  aroused  by  the  dread  power 
of  Satan;  and  witchcraft  inevitably  took  its 
place  in  the  annals  of  New  England  Puritanism 
as  it  had  done  for  a  century  in  the  annals  of  the 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  81 

older  world.  Not  one  of  the  colonies,  except 
Rhode  Island,  was  free  from  its  manifestations. 
Plymouth  had  two  cases  which  came  to  trial,  but 
no  executions;  Connecticut  and  New  Haven  had 
many  trials  and  a  number  of  executions,  begin- 
ning with  that  of  Alse  Young  in  Windsor  in  1647, 
the  first  execution  for  witchcraft  in  New  England. 
The  witch  panic,  a  fearful  exhibition  of  human 
terror,  appeared  in  Massachusetts  as  early  as 
1648,  and  ran  its  sinister  course  for  more  than 
forty  years,  involving  high  and  low  alike  and 
disclosing  an  amazing  amount  of  credulity  and 
superstition.  To  the  Puritan  the  power  of  Satan 
was  ever  imminent,  working  through  friend  or 
foe,  and  using  the  human  form  as  an  instrument 
of  injury  to  the  chosen  of  God.  The  great  epi- 
demic of  witchcraft  at  Salem  in  1692,  the  climax 
and  close  of  the  delusion,  resulted  in  the  imprison- 
ment of  over  two  hundred  persons  and  the  execu- 
tion of  nineteen.  Some  of  those  who  sat  in  the 
court  of  trial  later  came  to  their  senses  and  were 
heartily  ashamed  of  their  share  in  the  proceedings. 

The  New  Englander  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
courageous  as  he  was  and  loyal  to  his  religious 
convictions,  was  in  a  majority  of  cases  gifted 
with  but  a  meager  mental  outfit.    The  unknown 

6 


82     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

world  frightened  and  appalled  him;  Satan  war- 
ring with  the  righteous  was  an  ever-present  menace 
to  his  soul;  the  will  of  God  controlled  the  events 
of  his  daily  life,  whether  for  good  or  ill.  The 
book  of  nature  and  the  physiology  and  ailments 
of  his  own  body  he  comprehended  with  the  mind 
of  a  child.  He  believed  that  the  planet  upon 
which  he  lived  was  the  center  of  the  universe, 
that  the  stars  were  burning  vapors,  and  the  moon 
and  comets  agencies  controlling  human  destinies. 
Strange  portents  presaged  disaster  or  wrought 
evil  works.  Many  a  New  Englander's  life  was 
governed  according  to  the  supposed  influence  of 
the  heavenly  bodies;  Bradford  believed  that  there 
was  a  connection  between  a  cyclone  and  an  eclipse; 
and  Morton  defined  an  earthquake  as  a  movement 
of  wind  shut  up  in  the  pores  and  bowels  of  the 
earth. 

/  Of  medicine  the  Puritans  knew  little  and  prac- 
tised less.  They  swallowed  doses  of  weird  and 
repelling  concoctions,  wore  charms  and  amulets, 
found  comfort  and  relief  in  internal  and  external 
remedies  that  could  have  had  no  possible  influ- 
ence upon  the  cause  of  the  trouble,  and  when  all 
else  failed  they  fell  back  upon  the  mercy  and  will 
of  God.    Surgery  was  a  matter  of  tooth-pulling 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  83 

and  bone-setting,  and  though  post-mortems  were 
performed,  we  have  no  knowledge  of  the  skill  of 
the  practitioner.  The  healing  art,  as  well  as  nurs- 
ing and  midwifery,  was  frequently  in  the  hands  of 
women,  one  of  whom  deposed:  "I  was  able  to 
live  by  my  chirurgery,  but  now  I  am  blind  and 
cannot  see  a  wound,  much  less  dress  it  or  make 
salves'';  and  Jane  Hawkins  of  Boston,  the  bosom 
friend"  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  was  forbidden  by  the 
general  courts  *'to  meddle  in  surgery  or  physic, 
drink,  plaisters  or  oils,"  as  well  as  religion.  The 
men  who  practised  physic  were  generally  home- 
bred, making  the  greater  part  of  their  living  at 
farming  or  agriculture.  Some  were  ministers  as 
well  as  physicians,  and  one  of  them  (Dr.  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  is  sorry  to  say)  ^'took  to  drink 
and  tumbled  into  the  Connecticut  River,  and  so 
ended."  There  were  a  number  of  regularly  trained 
doctors,  such  as  John  Clark  of  Newbury,  Fuller 
of  Plymouth,  Rossiter  of  Guilford,  and  others; 
and  the  younger  Winthrop,  though  not  a  physician, 
had  more  than  a  smattering  of  medicine. 

The  mass  of  the  New  Englanders  of  the  seven- 
{eenth  century  had  but  little  education  and  but 
few  opportunities  for  traveL  j  tKs  early  as  1642, 
Massachusetts  required  that  every  child  should 


84      THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

be  taught  to  read,  and  in  1647  enacted  a  law 
ordaining  that  every  township  should  appoint  a 
schoolmaster,  and  that  the  larger  towns  should 
each  set  up  a  grammar  schoolT^f  This  well-known 
and  much  praised  enactment,  which  made  educa- 
tion the  handmaid  of  religion  and  was  designed  to 
stem  the  tide  of  religious  indifference  rising  over 
the  colony,  was  better  in  intention  than  in  execu- 
tion. It  had  little  effect  at  first,  and  even  when 
under  its  provisions  the  common  school  gradually 
took  root  in  New  England,  the  education  given 
was  of  a  very  primitive  variety.  Harvard  Col- 
lege itself,  chartered  in  1636,  was  a  seat  of  but  a 
moderate  amount  of  learning  and  at  its  best  had 
only  the  training  of  the  clergy  in  view.  In  Hart- 
ford and  New  Haven,  grammar  schools  were 
founded  under  the  bequest  of  Governor  Hopkins, 
but  came  to  little  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
In  1674,  one  Robert  Bartlett  left  money  for  the 
setting  up  of  a  free  school  in  New  London,  for 
the  teaching  of  Latin  to  poor  children,  but  the 
hope  was  richer  than  the  fulfilment.  In  truth, 
of  education  for  the  laity  at  this  time  in  New  Eng- 
land there  was  scarcely  more  than  the  rudiments 
of  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic.  The  frugal 
townspeople  of  New  England  generally  deemed 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  85 

education  an  unnecessary  expense;  the  school 
laws  were  evaded,  and  when  complied  with  were 
more  honored  in  the  breach  than  in  the  observance. 
Even  when  honestly  carried  out,  they  produced 
but  slender  results.  Probably  most  people  could 
sign  their  names  after  a  fashion,  though  many 
extant  wills  and  depositions  bear  only  the  marks 
of  their  signers.  Schoolmasters  and  town  clerks 
had  diflSculties  with  spelling  and  grammar,  and 
the  rural  population  were  too  much  engrossed  by 
their  farm  labors  to  find  much  time  for  the  im- 
provement of  the  mind.  Except  in  the  homes  of 
the  clergy  and  the  leading  men  of  the  larger  towns 
there  were  few  books,  and  those  chiefly  of  a  reli- 
gious character.  The  English  Bible  and  Bunyan's 
Pilgrim^ s  Progress ^  printed  in  Boston  in  1681, 
were  most  frequently  read,  and  in  the  houses  of 
the  farmers  the  British  Almanac  was  occasionally 
found.  There  were  no  newspapers,  and  printing 
had  as  yet  made  little  progress. 

The  daily  routine  of  clearing  the  soil,  tilling 
the  arable  land,  raising  corn,  rye,  wheat,  oats,  and 
flax,  of  gathering  iron  ore  from  bogs  and  turpentine 
from  pine  trees,  and  in  other  ways  of  providing  the 
means  of  existence,  rendered  life  essentially  sta- 
tionary and  isolated,  and  the  mind  was  but  slightly 


86      THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

quickened  by  association  with  the  larger  world. 
A  little  journeying  was  done  on  foot,  on  horseback, 
or  by  water,  but  the  trip  from  colony  to  colony 
was  rarely  undertaken;  and  even  within  the 
colony  itself  but  few  went  far  beyond  the  borders 
of  their  own  townships,  except  those  who  sat  as 
deputies  in  the  assembly  or  engaged  in  hunting, 
trading,  fishing,  or  in  wars  with  the  Indians.  A 
Connecticut  man  could  speak  of  ''going  abroad*' 
to  Rhode  Island.  Though  in  the  larger  towns 
good  houses  were  built,  generally  of  wood  and 
sometimes  of  brick,  in  the  remoter  districts  the 
buildings  were  crude,  with  rooms  on  one  floor  and 
a  ladder  to  the  chamber  above,  where  corn  was 
frequently  stored.  /  Along  the  Pawcatuck  River, 
families  lived  in  cellars  along  with  their  pigs. 
Clapboards  and  shingles  came  in  slowly  as  saw- 
mills increased,  but  at  first  nails  and  glass  were 
rare  luxuries.  Conditions  in  such  seaports  as 
Boston,  where  ships  came  and  went  and  higher 
standards  of  living  prevailed,  must  not  be  taken 
as  typical  of  the  whole  country.  The  buildings  of 
Boston  in  1683  were  spoken  of  as  ''handsome,  join- 
ing one  to  another  as  in  London,  with  many  large 
streets,  most  of  them  paved  with  pebble  stone.'* 
;  Money  in  the  country  towns  was  merchantable 


EARLY  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  87 

whe^t,  peas,  pork,  and  beef  at  prices  current.  Time 
was  reckoned  by  the  farmers  according  to  the  sea- 
sons, not  according  to  the  calendar,  and  men  dated 
events  by  "sweet  corn  time,"  "at  the  beginning  of 
last  hog  time,''  "since  Indian  harvest,"  and  "the 
latter  part  of  seed  time  for  winter  wheat." 

New  England  was  a  frontier  land  far  removed 
from  the  older  civilizations,  and  its  people  were 
always  restive  under  restraint  and  convention. 
They  were  in  the  main  men  and  women  of  good 
sense,  sobriety,  and  thrift,  who  worked  hard, 
squandered  nothing,  feared  God,  and  honored  the 
King,  but  the  equipment  they  brought  with  them 
to  America  was  insufficient  at  best  and  had  to 
be  replaced,  as  the  years  wore  on,  from  resources 
developed  on  New  England  soil. 


CHAPTER  V 


AN  ATTEMPT  AT  COLONIAL  UNION 

The  men  who  controlled  the  destinies  of  New 
England  were  deeply  concerned  not  only  with  pre- 
serving its  faith  but  also  with  guarding  its  rights 
and  liberties  as  they  defined  them,  and  reverentially 
preserving  the  letter  of  its  charters.  For  men  who 
wished  to  sever  their  connection  with  England 
and  to  disregard  English  law  and  precedent  as 
much  as  possible,  they  displayed  a  remarkable 
amount  of  respect  for  the  documents  that  ema- 
nated from  the  British  Chancery.  In  fact,  how- 
ever, they  valued  these  grants  and  charters,  not  as 
expressions  of  royal  favor,  but  as  bulwarks  against 
royal  encroachment  and  outside  interference,  and 
in  accepting  such  privileges  as  were  conferred  by 
their  charters,  they  recognized  no  duty  to  be 
performed  for  the  common  mother,  no  obligations 
resting  upon  themselves  to  consider  the  welfare 
of  England  or  to  cooperate  in  her  behalf. 

88 


AN  ATTEMPT  AT  COLONIAL  UNION  89 

The  thoughts  of  these  men  were  of  themselves, 
their  faith,  and  their  problems  of  existence.  The 
strongest  ties  were  those  that  held  together  the 
people  of  a  town,  closely  knit  in  the  bond  of  a 
civil  and  religious  covenant.  Next  above  these 
were  the  ties  of  the  colony,  with  its  general  court 
or  assembly  composed  of  representatives  of  the 
towns,  its  governor  and  other  oflScials  elected  by 
the  freemen,  and  its  laws  passed  by  the  assembly 
for  the  benefit  and  well-being  of  all.  Higher  still 
was  the  loose  bond  of  confederation  that  was 
fashioned  in  1643  for  the  maintenance  of  order, 
peace,  and  security,  in  the  form  of  a  league  of 
colonies.  Highest,  but  weakest  of  all,  was  the 
bond  that  united  them  to  England,  recognized 
in  sentiment  but  carrying  with  it  no  reciprocal 
obligations,  either  legal  or  otherwise.  To  the 
average  inhabitant  of  New  England,  the  mother 
country  was  merely  the  land  from  which  he  had 
come,  the  home  to  which  he  might  or  might  not 
return.  He  had  practically  no  knowledge  of  Eng- 
land's plans  or  policy,  no  comprehension  of  her 
purpose  toward  her  colonies  or  the  place  of  the 
colonies  in  her  own  scheme  of  expansion.  He 
was  absorbed  in  his  own  affairs,  not  in  those  of 
England;  in  the  commands  of  God,  not  in  those  of 


90      TEIE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  King;  and  in  the  dangers  which  surrounded 
him  from  the  foes  of  the  frontier,  not  in  those 
which  confronted  England  in  her  relations  with 
her  continental  rivals.  He  was  dominated  by  his 
instinct  for  self-government  and  by  his  compelling 
fear  of  the  Stuarts  and  all  that  they  represented. 
Even  during  the  period  of  the  Commonwealth 
and  the  Protectorate,  England  was  three  thousand 
miles  away,  appeal  to  her  was  difficult  and  costly, 
and  the  English  brethren  were  not  always  as 
sympathetic  as  they  might  have  been  with  the 
aims  and  methods  of  their  co-religionists. 

This  very  isolation  from  the  mother  country, 
at  a  time  when  the  New  Englanders  were  pushing 
their  fur-trading  activities  into  the  regions  claimed 
by  the  Dutch  and  the  French,  rendered  some  sort 
of  united  action  necessary  and  desirable.  The 
settlers  were  of  one  stock  and  one  purpose.  De- 
spite bickerings  and  disputes,  they  shared  a  com- 
mon desire  to  enjoy  the  liberties  of  the  Christian 
religion  and  to  obtain  from  the  new  country  into 
which  they  had  come  both  subsistence  and  profit. 
The  determination  to  open  up  trading  posts  on 
the  Penobscot,  the  Delaware,  and  the  Hudson, 
and  to  utilize  all  waters  for  their  fisheries  brought 
them  into  conflict  with  their  rivals,  at  New  Am- 


AN  ATTEMPT  AT  COLONIAL  UNION  91 

sterdam  and  in  Nova  Scotia,  and  made  it  im- 
perative, should  any  one  colony  —  Plymouth, 
Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  or  New  Haven  — 
attempt  to  pursue  its  plans  alone,  for  all  to  band 
together  in  its  support.  The  troubles  already  en- 
countered with  the  Dutch  on  the  Delaware  and  the 
Connecticut  and  with  the  French  in  Maine,  in  the 
competition  for  the  fur  trade  of  the  interior,  had 
rendered  the  situation  acute  and  led,  very  early, 
to  the  proposal  that  a  combination  be  effected. 

But  it  was  not  until  1643  that  anything  was 
accomplished.  In  May  of  that  year,  at  the 
suggestion  of  Connecticut  and  New  Haven,  com- 
missioners from  these  colonies,  and  from  Mas- 
sachusetts and  Plymouth  also,  met  at  Boston  and 
drafted  a  body  of  articles  for  a  consociation  or 
confederation  to  be  known  as  the  United  Colonies 
of  New  England,  a  form  of  union  which  found  a 
precedent  in  the  federation  of  the  Netherlands 
and  corresponded  in  the  political  field  to  the  con- 
sociation of  churches  in  the  ecclesiastical.  Maine 
was  not  asked  because,  as  a  province  belonging 
to  Gorges,  the  people  there  (to  quote  from  Win- 
throp's  Journal)  "ran  a  different  course  from  the 
other  colonies,  both  in  their  ministry  and  civil 
administration,  .  .  .  had  lately  made  Acomenti- 


92     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

cus  (a  poor  village)  a  corporation,  and  had  made 
a  taylor  their  mayor,  and  had  entertained  one  Hull, 
an  excommunicated  person  and  very  contentious, 
for  their  minister/'  Rhode  Island,  as  a  seat  of 
separatism  and  heresy,  was  not  invited  and  per- 
haps not  even  considered.  For  managing  the 
affairs  of  the  confederation,  the  main  objects  of 
which  were  friendship  and  amity,  protection  and 
defense,  advice  and  succor,  and  the  preservation 
of  the  truth  and  purity  of  the  Gospel,  eight  com- 
missioners were  provided,  to  be  chosen  by  the 
assemblies  of  the  colonies  and  to  represent  the 
colonies  as  independent  political  units.  Meetings 
were  to  be  held  once  a  year  in  one  or  other  of  the 
leading  towns  and  a  full  record  was  to  be  kept 
of  the  business  done.  The  board  thus  established 
never  did  more  than  make  recommendations  and 
offer  advice,  as  it  had  no  authority  to  execute  any 
of  the  plans  that  it  might  make;  and  although 
the  records  of  its  meetings  are  lengthy  and  give 
evidence  of  elaborate  discussion  of  important 
matters,  the  results  of  its  deliberations  cannot 
be  said  to  be  particularly  significant. 

The  commissioners  dealt  with  a  number  of 
local  disputes  of  no  great  moment  and  considered 
certain  internal  diflSculties  that  threatened  to 


AN  ATTEMPT  AT  COLONIAL  UNION  93 

disturb  the  friendly  intercourse  among  the  colo- 
nies. For  instance,  Connecticut  had  levied  tolls 
at  Saybrook  on  vessels  going  up  the  Connecticut 
River  to  Springfield,  and  Massachusetts  had 
retaliated  by  laying  duties  on  goods  from  other 
colonies  entering  her  ports.  Under  pressure  from 
the  commissioners  both  the  colonies  receded  from 
their  positions.  Again,  the  commissioners  re- 
commended the  granting  of  aid  to  Harvard  Col- 
lege, and  that  institution  consequently  received 
from  Connecticut  and  New  Haven  annually  for 
many  years  a  regular  allowance,  in  return  for 
which  it  presented  the  Connecticut  colony  with 
nearly  sixty  graduates  in  the  ensuing  half -century 
well  equipped  to  combat  latitudinarianism  and 
heresy.  The  commissioners  fulfilled  their  obliga- 
tion as  guardians  of  the  purity  of  the  Gospel, 
both  in  their  support  of  the  synod  of  1646-1648 
and  in  their  strenuous  efforts  to  check  the  increase 
of  religious  discontent  due  to  the  narrow  definition 
of  church  membership  —  efforts  which  eventually 
resulted  in  that  "illogical  compromise,"  the  Half- 
Way  Covenant.  They  recommended  the  driving 
out  of  "Quakers,  Ranters,  and  other  Herritics  of 
that  nature,"  and  urged  that  the  true  Gospel 
might  be  spread  among  the  Indians.    They  up- 


94     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGL  O 

held  the  work  of  the  Society  for  the  Promoting 
and  Propagating  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ 
in  New  England,  and  they  directed  and  guided 
the  labors  of  its  missionaries,  most  notable  of 
whom  was  the  famous  John  Eliot,  apostle  to  the 
Indians  and  translator  of  the  Bible  into  their 
language. 

^  The  most  important  business  of  the  confedera- 
tion concerned  the  defense  of  New  England  against 
the  Indians,  the  Dutch,  and  the  French.  The 
Indians  were  an  ever-present  menace,  near  and 
far;  the  Dutch  disputed  the  English  claims  all 
the  way  from  New  Amsterdam  to  Narragansett 
Bay,  and  resented  the  attempts  already  made  to 
encroach  upon  their  trading  grounds;  and  the 
French  at  this  time  were  strenuously  denying  the 
right  of  the  English,  particularly  those  of  Ply- 
mouth, to  establish  trading-posts  at  Machias  and 
on  the  Penobscot,  and  were  laying  claim  to  all 
the  Nova  Scotian  territory  as  far  west  as  the 
Penobscot. 

Though  the  French,  in  their  eflFort  to  drive  out 
all  the  English  settlers  east  of  Pemaquid  in  Maine, 
had  destroyed  two  Plymouth  posts  in  that  region, 
the  commissioners  were  called  upon  to  decide 
not  so  much  what  should  be  done  about  this  act 


AN  ATTEMPT  AT  COLONIAL  UNION  95 

of  aggression,  as  which  of  the  claimants  among 
the  French  themselves  it  was  wiser  for  the  colonies 
to  support.  A  certain  Charles  de  la  Tour  had 
been  commissioned  by  the  Governor-General  of 
Acadia  or  Nova  Scotia  as  lieutenant  of  the  region 
east  of  the  St.  Croix,  and  another,  Charles  de 
Menou,  Sieur  d'Aulnay-Charnise,  as  lieutenant  of 
the  region  between  the  St.  Croix  and  the  Penob- 
scot. When  the  Governor-General  died  in  1635, 
a  contest  for  the  governorship  took  place  between 
these  two  men,  and  not  unnaturally  volunteers 
from  Massachusetts  aided  La  Tour,  whose  original 
jurisdiction  was  farthest  removed  from  their 
colony.  Trade  on  these  northeastern  coasts  was 
deemed  essential  to  the  prosperity  of  the  New 
Englanders,  and  it  was  considered  of  great  impor- 
tance to  make  no  mistake  in  backing  the  wrong 
claimant.  D'Aulnay,  or  more  correctly  Aulnay, 
had  been  partly  responsible  for  the  attack  on  the 
Plymouth  trading-posts,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  had  the  stronger  title;  and  Massachusetts  was 
a  good  deal  perplexed  as  to  what  course  to  pur- 
sue. In  1644,  Aulnay  sent  a  commissioner  to 
Boston,  who  conversed  with  Governor  Endecott 
in  French  and  with  the  rest  of  the  magistrates  in 
Latin  and  endeavored  to  arrange  terms  of  peace. 


96     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Two  years  later  the  same  commissioner  came 
again,  with  two  others,  and  was  cordially  enter- 
tained with  "'wine  and  sweetmeats/'  The  mat- 
ter was  referred  to  the  commissioners  of  the  United 
Colonies,  who  decided,  with  considerable  shrewd- 
ness, that  the  volunteers  in  aiding  La  Tour  had 
acted  efficiently  but  not  wisely;  and  consequently 
a  compromise  was  reached.  Aulnay's  commis- 
sioners abated  their  claims  for  damages,  and 
Governor  Winthrop  consented  to  send  "a  small 
present''  to  Aulnay  in  lieu  of  compensation.  The 
present  was  ^'a  fair  new  sedan  (worth,"  says 
Winthrop,  forty  or  fifty  pounds,  where  it  was 
made,  but  of  no  use  to  us),"  having  been  part 
of  some  Spanish  booty  taken  in  the  West  Indies 
and  presented  to  the  Governor.  So  final  peace 
was  made  at  no  expense  to  the  colony;  and 
later,  after  Aulnay's  death  in  1650,  La  Tour 
married  the  widow  and  came  to  his  own  in  Nova 
Scotia. 

The  troubles  with  the  Dutch  were  not  so  easily 
settled.  England  had  never  acknowledged  the 
Dutch  claim  to  New  Amsterdam,  and  the  New 
England  Council  in  making  its  grants  had  paid 
no  attention  to  the  Dutch  occupation.  Though 
trade  had  been  carried  on  and  early  relations  had 


AN  ATTEMPT  AT  COLONIAL  UNION  97 

been  on  the  whole  amicable,  yet,  after  Connecticut's 
overthrow  of  the  Pequots  in  1637  and  the  opening 
of  the  territory  to  settlement,  the  founding  of 
towns  as  far  west  as  Stamford  and  Greenwich 
had  rendered  acute  the  conflict  of  titles.  There 
was  no  western  limit  to  the  English  claims,  and, 
as  the  colonists  were  perfectly  willing  to  accept 
Sir  William  BoswelFs  advice  to  crowd  on,  crowd- 
ing the  Dutch  out  of  those  places  which  they  have 
occupied,  without  hostility  or  any  act  of  vio- 
lence,''  a  collision  was  bound  to  come.  The  Dutch, 
who  in  their  turn  were  not  abating  a  jot  of  their 
claims,  had  already  destroyed  a  New  Haven  settle- 
ment on  the  Delaware,  and  had  asserted  rights 
of  jurisdiction  even  in  New  Haven  harbor,  by 
seizing  there  one  of  their  own  ships  charged  with 
evading  the  laws  of  New  Amsterdam.  Peter 
Stuyvesant,  the  Dutch  Governor,  famous  for  his 
short  temper  and  mythical  silver  leg,  visited 
Hartford  in  1650,  and  negotiated  with  the  commis- 
sioners of  the  United  Colonies  a  treaty  drawing 
the  boundary  line  from  the  west  side  of  Green- 
wich Bay  northward  twenty  miles.  But  this 
treaty,  though  ratified  by  the  States  General  of 
Holland,  was  never  ratified  by  England,  and, 
when  two  years  later  war  between  the  two  coun- 


98     THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

tries  broke  out  overseas,  the  question  of  an 
attack  on  New  Amsterdam  was  taken  up  and 
debated  with  such  heat  as  nearly  to  disrupt  the 
Confederation.  The  absolute  refusal  of  Massa- 
chusetts to  enter  on  such  an  undertaking  so  pro- 
longed the  discussion  that  the  war  was  over  before 
a  decision  was  reached;  but  Connecticut  seized 
the  Dutch  lands  at  Hartford,  and  Roger  Ludlow, 
wjio  had  moved  to  Fairfield  from  Windsor  after 
1640,  began  an  abortive  military  campaign  of  his 
own.  The  situation  remained  unchanged  as  long 
as  the  Dutch  held  New  Netherland,  and  the  region 
between  Greenwich  and  the  Bronx  continued  to 
be  what  it  had  been  from  the  beginning  of  settle- 
ment, a  territory  occupied  only  by  Indians  and  a 
few  straggling  emigrants.  There  the  unfortunate 
Anne  Hutchinson  with  her  family  was  massacred 
by  the  Indians  in  1643. 

The  New  England  Confederation  performed 
the  most  important  part  of  its  work  during  the 
first  twenty  years  of  its  existence,  for  although  it 
lasted  nominally  till  1684,  it  ceased  to  be  effective 
after  1664,  and  was  of  little  weight  in  New  Eng- 
land history  after  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts. 
Owing  to  the  fact  that  it  had  been  formed  with- 
out any  authority  from  England,  the  Confederation 


AN  ATTEMPT  AT  COLONIAL  UNION  99 

was  never  recognized  by  the  Government  there, 
and  with  the  return  of  the  monarchy  it  survived 
chiefly  as  an  occasional  committee  meeting  for 
debate  and  advice. 


CHAPTER  VI 


WINNING  THE  CHARTERS 

The  accession  of  Charles  II  to  the  throne  of 
England  provoked  a  crisis  in  the  affairs  of  the 
Puritans  and  gave  rise  to  many  problems  that  the 
New  Englanders  had  not  anticipated  and  did  not 
know  how  to  solve.  With  a  Stuart  again  in 
control,  there  were  many  questions  that  might 
be  easilyagked-feut-kss  ea§il^:-aiiOT£red.  Except 
JoiT'lJilassachusetts  ajra  Plymouth^^  a  settle- 
ment had^  a  legal'^le  to-4fers5irf  and  except  for 
Massachusetts,  not  one  had  ever  received  a  suffi- 
cient warrant  for  the  government  which  it  had 
set  up.  Naturally,  therefore,  there  was  disqui- 
etude in  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  and  New 
Haven;  and  even  Massachusetts,  buttressed  as 
she  was,  feared  lest  the  King  might  object  to  many 
of  the  things  she  had  done.  Entrenched  behind 
her  charter  and  aware  of  her  superiority  in  wealth, 
territory,  and  population,  she  had  taken  the  leader- 

100 


WINNING  THE  CHARTERS  101 

ship  in  New  England  and  had  used  her  oppor- 
tunity to  intimidate  her  neighbors.  Except  for 
New  Haven,  not  a  colony  or  group  of  settlements 
but  had  felt  the  weight  of  her  claims.  Plymouth 
and  Connecticut  had  protested  against  her  de- 
mands; the  Narragansett  towns  with  diflSculty 
had  evaded  her  attempt  to  absorb  them;  and  the 
settlements  at  Piscataqua  and  on  the  Maine  coast 
— imd  finally  yielded  to  her  jurisdiction.  As  long 
as  Cromwell  lived  and  the  Government  of  England 
was  under  Puritan  direction,  Massachusetts  had 
little  to  fear  from  protests  against  her;  but,  with 
the  Cromwellian  regime  at  an  end,  she  could  not 
expect  from  the  restored  monarchy  a  favoring  or 
friendly  attitude. 

The  change  in  England  was  not  merely  one  of 
government;  it  was  one  of  policy  as  well.  Even 
during  the  Cromwellian  period.  Englishmen  awoke 
to  a  greater  appreciation  of  the  importance  of 
colonies  as  assets  of  the  mother  country,  and 
began  to  realize,  in  a  fashion  unknown  to  the 
earlier  period,  the  necessity  of  extending  and 
strengthening  England's  possessions  in  America. 
England  was  engaged  in  a  desperate  commercial 
war  with  Holland,  whose  vessels  had  obtained  a 
monopoly  of  the  carrying  trade  of  the  world;  and 


102    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

to  win  in  that  conflict  it  was  imperative  that  her 
statesmen  should  husband  every  resource  that 
the  kingdom  possessed.  The  religious  agitations 
of  previous  years  were  passing  away  and  the  New 
England  colonies  were  not  likely  to  be  troubled 
on  account  of  their  Puritanism.  The  great  ques- 
tion in  England  was  not  religious  conformity  but 
national  strength  based  on  commercial  prosperity. 

Thus  England  was  fashioning  a  new  system  and 
defining  a  new  policy.  By  means  of  navigation 
acts,  she  barred  the  Dutch  from  the  carrying  trade 
and  confined  colonial  commerce  in  large  part  to 
the  mother  country.  She  established  councils 
and  committees  of  trade  and  plantations,  and,  by 
the  seizure  of  New  Netherland  in  1664  and  the 
grant  of  the  Carolinas  and  the  Bahamas  in  1663 
and  1670,  she  completed  the  chain  of  her  posses- 
sions in  America  from  New  England  to  Barbados. 
A  far-fiung  colonial  world  was  gradually  taking 
shape,  demanding  of  the  King  and  his  advisers 
an  interest  in  America  of  a  kind  hitherto  unknown. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  so  vast  a  problem,  in- 
volving the  trade  and  defense  of  nearly  twenty 
colonies,  should  have  made  the  internal  affairs 
of  New  England  seem  of  less  consequence  to 
the  royal  authorities  than  had  been  the  case  in  the 


WINNING  THE  CHARTERS 


103 


days  of  Charles  I  and  Archbishop  Laud,  when  the 
obtaining  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  charter  had 
roused  such  intensity  of  feeling  in  England.  What 
was  interesting  Englishmen  was  no  longer  the 
matter  of  religious  obedience  in  the  colonies,  but 
rather  that  of  their  political  and  commercial 
dependence  on  the  mother  country. 


J^^Ss  the  future  of  New  England  was  certain  to 
be  debated  at  Whitehall  after  1660,  the  colonies 
took  pains  to  have  representatives  on  the  ground 
to  meet  criticisms  and  complaints,  to  ward  off 
attacks,  and  to  beg  for  favors.  Rhode  Island 
sent  a  commission  to  Dr.  John  Clarke,  one  of  her 
founders  and  leading  men,  at  that  time  in  London, 
instructing  him  to  ask  for  royal  protection,  self- 
government,  liberty  of  conscience,  and  a  charter. 
Massachusetts  sent  Simon  Bradstreet  and  the 
Reverend  John  Norton,  with  a  petition  that  reads 
like  a  sermon,  praying  the  King  not  to  listen  to  other 
men^s  words  but  to  grant  the  colonists  an  oppor- 
tunity to  answer  for  themselves,  they  being  "true 
men,  fearers  of  God  and  the  King,  not  given  to 
change,  orthodox  and  peaceable  in  Israel.^'  Con- 
necticut, with  more  worldly  wisdom,  sent  John 
Winthrop,  the  Governor,  a  man  courtly  and  tact- 
ful, with  a  petition  shrewdly  worded  and  to  the 


104    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

point.  Plymouth  entrusted  her  mission  also  to 
Winthrop,  hoping  for  a  confirmation  of  her  po- 
litical and  religious  liberties.  All  protested  their 
loyalty  to  the  Crown,  while  Massachusetts,  her 
petition  signed  by  the  stiff-necked  Endecott, 
prostrated  herself  at  the  royal  feet,  craving  pardon 
for  her  boldness,  and  subscribing  herself  *'Your 
Majesties  most  humble  subjects  and  suppliants.*' 
Did  Endecott  remember,  we  wonder,  a  certain 
incident  connected  with  the  royal  ensign  at  Salem 
Against  the  lesser  colonies  no  complaints  were 
presented,  except  in  the  case  of  New  Haven, 
which  was  charged  by  the  inhabitants  of  Shelter 
Island  with  usurpation  of  their  goods  and  terri- 
tory; but  for  Massachusetts  the  restoration  of 
the  Stuarts  opened  a  veritable  Pandora's  box  of 
troubles.  In  divers  complaints,  petitions,  and 
other  informations  concerning  New  England," 
she  was  accused  of  overbearance  and  oppression, 
of  seizing  the  territory  of  New  Hampshire  and 
Maine,  of  denying  the  rights  of  Englishmen  to 
Anglicans  and  non-freemen  of  the  colony,  and  of 
persecuting  the  Quakers  and  others  of  religious 
views  different  from  her  own.  She  was  declared 
to  be  seeking  independence  of  Crown  and  Parlia- 
ment by  forbidding  appeals  to  England,  refusing 


WINNING  THE  CHARTERS  105 

to  enforce  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  King,  and 
in  general  exceeding  the  powers  laid  down  in  her 
charter.  The  new  plantations  council,  commis- 
sioned by  the  King  in  December,  1660,  sent  a  per- 
emptory letter  the  following  April  ordering  the 
colony  to  proclaim  the  King  "in  the  most  solemn 
manner/'  and  to  hold  herself  in  readiness  to  answer 
complaints  by  appointing  persons  well  instructed 
to  represent  her  before  itself  in  England.  At  the 
same  time,  it  begged  the  King  to  go  slowly,  giving 
Massachusetts  an  opportunity  to  be  heard,  and 
to  write  a  letter  "with  all  possible  tenderness,'* 
pointing  out  that  submission  to  the  royal  authority 
was  absolutely  essential.  This  the  King  did, 
confirming  the  charter  of  Massachusetts,  renewing 
the  colony's  rights  and  privileges,  and  in  concilia- 
tory fashion  ascribing  all  derelictions  of  duty  to 
the  iniquity  of  the  times  rather  than  to  any  evil 
intention  of  the  heart.  Then  declaring  that  the 
chief  aim  of  the  charter  was  liberty  of  conscience, 
the  King  struck  at  the  very  heart  of  the  Massachu- 
setts system,  by  commanding  the  magistrates  to 
grant  full  liberty  of  worship  to  members  of  the 
Anglican  Church  and  the  right  to  vote  to  all  who 
were  "orthodox"  in  religion  and  possessed  of 
"competent  estates."    Though  this  order  was 


106    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

evaded  by  various  definitions  of  " orthodox'*  and 
competent  estates'*  and  was  not  to  be  fully 
executed  for  many  years,  yet  its  meaning  was 
clear  —  no  single  religious  body  would  ever  again 
be  allowed,  by  the  royal  authorities  in  England, 
to  monopolize  the  government  or  control  the  po- 
litical destinies  of  a  British  colony  in  America  or 
elsewhere. 

The  policy  thus  adopted  toward  Massachusetts 
became  even  more  conciliatory  when  applied  to 
the  other  colonies.  It  is  not  improbable  that  the 
King's  advisers  saw  in  the  strengthening  of  Con- 
necticut and  Rhode  Island  an  opportunity  to 
check  the  power  of  Massachusetts  and  to  reduce 
her  importance  in  New  England.  However  that 
may  be,  they  lent  themselves  to  the  eflForts  that 
Winthrop  and  Clarke  were  making  to  obtain 
charters  for  their  respective  colonies.  These 
agents  were  able,  discreet,  and  broadminded  men. 
Clarke,  a  resident  in  England  for  a  number  of 
years,  had  acquired  no  little  personal  influence; 
and  Winthrop,  as  an  old-time  friend  of  the  English 
lords  and  gentlemen  whose  governor  he  had  been 
at  Saybrook,  could  count  on  the  help  of  the  one 
surviving  member  of  that  group.  Lord  Saye  and 
Sele,  who  was  a  privy  councillor,  a  member  of  the 


WINNING  THE  CHARTERS  107 

House  of  Lords  and  of  the  plantations  council, 
and,  as  we  are  told.  Lord  Privy  Seal,  a  position 
that  would  be  of  direct  service  in  expediting  the 
issue  of  a  charter.  Winthrop  had  personal  quali- 
ties, also,  that  made  for  success.  He  was  a 
university  man,  had  made  the  grand  tour  of  the 
Continent,  and  was  familiar  with  official  traditions 
and  the  ways  of  the  court.  Soon  after  his  arrival 
in  England,  he  became  a  member  of  the  Royal 
Society  and  served  on  several  of  its  committees, 
and  thus  had  an  opportunity  of  making  friends 
and  of  showing  his  interest  in  other  things  than 
theology.  If  Cotton  Mather  was  rightly  informed, 
Winthrop  was  accorded  a  personal  interview  with 
Charles  II  and  presented  the  King  with  a  ring 
which  Charles  I,  as  Prince  of  Wales,  had  given 
his  grandfather,  Adam  Winthrop. 

Winthrop  made  good  use  of  a  good  cause.  Con- 
necticut had  behaved  herself  well  and  had  incurred 
no  ill-will.  She  had  had  no  dealings  with  the  Crom- 
wellian  Government,  had  dutifully  proclaimed  the 
King,  had  been  discreet  in  her  attitude  toward 
Whalley  and  Goffe,  the  regicides  who  had  fled  to 
New  England,  and  had  aroused  no  resentment 
against  herself  among  her  neighbors.  With  pro- 
ceedings once  begun,  the  securing  of  the  charter 


108    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

went  rapidly  forward.  Winthrop  at  first  peti- 
tioned for  a  confirmation  of  the  old  Warwick 
patent,  which  had  been  purchased  of  the  English 
lords  and  gentlemen  in  1644,  but  later,  encouraged 
it  may  be  by  friends  in  England,  he  asked  for  a 
charter.  The  request  was  granted.^  The  docu- 
ment gave  to  Connecticut  the  same  boundaries 
as  those  of  the  old  patent,  and  conferred  powers 
of  government  identical  with  those  of  the  Funda- 
mental Orders  of  1639.  That  the  main  features 
of  the  charter  were  drawn  up  in  the  colony  before 
Winthrop  sailed  is  probable,  though  it  is  not 
impossible  that  they  were  drafted  in  London  by 
Winthrop  himself.  All  that  the  English  officials 
did  was  to  give  the  text  its  proper  legal  form. 

After  the  receipt  of  the  charter  and  its  proclama- 
tion in  the  colony  and  after  a  slight  readjustment 
of  the  government  to  meet  the  few  changes  re- 
quired, the  general  court  of  Connecticut  pro- 
ceeded to  enforce  the  full  territorial  rights  of  the 
colony.  The  men  of  Connecticut  had  made  up 
their  minds,  now  that  the  charter  had  come,  to 
execute  its  terms  to  the  uttermost  and  to  extend 
the  authority  of  the  colony  to  the  farthest  bounds, 

'  The  King's  warrant  was  issued  on  February  28,  the  writ  of 
Privy  Seal  on  April  23,  and  the  great  seal  was  affixed  on  May  10, 
1662. 


WINNING  THE  CHARTERS  109 

so  that,  next  to  the  government  of  the  Bay,  Con- 
necticut might  be  the  greatest  in  New  England- 
The  court  took  under  its  protection  the  towns  of 
Stamford  and  Greenwich,  and  on  the  ground  that 
the  whole  territory  westward  was  within  its  juris- 
diction warned  the  Dutch  governor  not  to  meddle. 
It  accepted  the  petition  of  Southold  on  Long 
Island  and  of  certain  residents  of  Guilford,  both 
of  the  New  Haven  federation,  for  annexation,  and, 
sending  a  force  to  Long  Island  to  demand  the 
surrender  of  the  western  towns  there,  it  seized 
Captain  John  Scott,  who  was  planning  to  estab- 
lish a  separate  government  over  them,  and  brought 
him  to  Hartford  for  trial.  It  informed  the  towns 
of  Mystic  and  Pawcatuck,  lying  in  the  disputed 
land  between  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island, 
that  they  were  in  the  Connecticut  colony  and  must 
henceforth  conduct  their  affairs  according  to  its 
laws.  The  relations  with  Rhode  Island  were  to 
be  a  matter  of  later  adjustment,  and  no  immedi- 
ate trouble  followed;  but  Stuyvesant,  the  Dutch 
Governor,  protested  angrily  against  Connecticut's 
claim  to  Dutch  territory  and  brought  the  matter 
to  the  attention  of  the  commissioners  of  the  United 
Colonies.  On  one  pretext  or  another,  the  latter 
delayed  action;  and  the  matter  was  not  settled 


110    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

until  England's  seizure  of  New  Amsterdam  in 
1664  brought  the  Dutch  rule  to  an  end  and  made 
operative  the  royal  grant  of  the  territory  to  the 
Duke  of  York,  thus  stopping  Connecticut  in  her 
somewhat  headlong  career  westward  and  taking 
from  her  the  whole  of  Long  Island  and  all  the 
land  west  of  the  Connecticut  River.  If  main- 
tained, this  grant  would  have  reduced  the  colony 
by  half  and  would  have  materially  retarded  its 
progress;  but  Connecticut  eventually  saved  the 
western  portion  of  her  territory  as  far  as  the  line 
of  1650.  However,  her  people  could  do  no  more 
crowding  on  into  the  region  beyond,  for  the  prov- 
ince of  New  York  now  lay  directly  across  the  path 
of  her  westward  expansion. 

But  with  New  Haven  her  success  was  complete. 
That  unfortunate  colony,  which  had  made  an 
eflFort  to  obtain  a  patent  in  1645,  when  the  "great 
ship,"  bearing  the  agent  Gregson,  had  foundered 
with  all  on  board,  had  no  friends  at  court,  and  had 
been  too  poor  after  1660  to  join  the  other  colonies 
in  sending  an  agent  to  London.  Consequently 
its  right  to  exist  as  an  independent  government 
was  not  considered  in  the  negotiations  which 
Winthrop  had  carried  on.  Serious  complairits 
had  been  raised  against  it;  its  rigorous  theocratic 


WINNING  THE  CHARTERS  111 

policy  had  created  divisions  among  its  own  people, 
many  of  whom  had  begun  to  protest;  it  had  been 
friendly  with  the  Cromwellian  regime  and  had 
proclaimed  Charles  II  unwillingly  and  after  long 
delay;  it  had  protected  the  regicides  until  the 
messengers  sent  out  for  their  capture  could  report 
the  colony  as  ''obstinate  and  pertinacious  in  con- 
tempt of  His  Majestic/'  Governor  Leete,  of  the 
younger  generation,  was  not  in  sympathy  with 
Davenport's  persistent  refusal  of  all  overtures 
from  Hartford,  and  would  probably  have  favored 
union  under  the  charter  of  1662  if  Connecticut 
had  been  less  aggressive  in  her  attitude.  As  it 
was,  the  controversy  became  pungent  and  was 
prolonged  for  more  than  two  years,  though  the 
outcome  was  never  uncertain.  The  New  Haven 
colony  was  poor,  unprotected,  and  divided  against 
itself.  Its  population  was  decreasing;  Indian 
massacres  threatened  its  frontiers;  the  malcon- 
tents of  Guilford,  led  by  Bray  Rossiter,  were 
demanding  immediate  and  unconditional  surren- 
der to  Connecticut;  and  finally  in  1664  the  suc- 
cessful capture  of  New  Netherland  and  the  grant 
to  the  Duke  of  York  threatened  the  colony  with 
annexation  from  that  quarter.  Rather  than  be 
joined  to  New  York,  New  Haven  surrendered. 


112    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

One  by  one  the  towns  broke  away  until  in  December 
of  that  year  only  Branford,  Guilford,  and  New 
Haven  remained.  On  December  13,  1664,  the 
freemen  of  these  towns,  with  a  few  others,  voted 
to  submit,  *'as  from  a  necessity  .  .  .  but  with  a 
salvo  jure  of  our  former  right  &  claime,  as  a 
people  who  have  not  yet  been  heard  in  point  of 
plea." 

The  New  Haven  federation  was  dissolved; 
Davenport  withdrew  to  Boston,  where  he  became 
a  participant  in  the  religious  life  of  that  colony; 
and  the  strict  Puritans  of  Branford,  Guilford,  and 
Milford,  led  by  Abraham  Pierson,  went  to  New 
Jersey  and  founded  Newark.  The  towns,  left 
loose  and  at  large,  joined  Connecticut  voluntarily 
and  separately,  and  the  New  Haven  colony  ceased 
to  exist.  But  the  dual  capital  of  Connecticut  and 
the  alternate  meetings  of  its  legislature  in  Hart- 
ford and  New  Haven,  marked  for  more  than  two 
hundred  years  the  twofold  origin  of  the  colony 
and  the  state. 

In  the  meantime  Rhode  Island  had  become  a 
legally  incorporated  colony.  Even  before  Win- 
throp  sailed  for  England,  Dr.  John  Clarke  had 
received  a  favorable  reply  to  his  petition  for  a 
charter.    But  a  year  passed  and  nothing  was  done 


WINNING  THE  CHARTERS  113 

about  the  matter,  probably  owing  to  the  arrival  of 
Winthrop  and  the  feeling  of  uncertainty  aroused  by 
the  conflicting  boundary  claims,  which  involved 
a  stretch  of  some  twenty-five  miles  of  territory 
between  Narragansett  Bay  and  the  Pawcatuck 
River.  A  third  claimant  also  appeared,  the  Ather- 
ton  Company,  with  its  headquarters  in  Boston, 
which  had  purchased  lands  of  the  Indians  at 
various  points  in  the  area  and  held  them  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  Massachusetts.  When  Clarke 
heard  that  Winthrop,  in  drawing  the  bounda- 
ries for  the  Connecticut  charter  of  1662,  had  in- 
cluded this  Narragansett  territory,  he  protested 
vehemently  to  the  King,  saying  that  Connecti- 
cut had  "'injuriously  swallowed  up  the  one-half 
of  our  colonic,"  and  demanding  a  reconsidera- 
tion. Finally,  after  the  question  had  been  de- 
bated in  the  presence  of  Clarendon  and  others, 
the  decision  was  reached  to  give  Rhode  Island  the 
boundaries  and  charter  she  desired,  but  to  leave 
the  question  of  conflicting  claims  for  later  settle- 
ment. Evidently  Winthrop,  though  not  agreeing 
with  Clarke  in  matters  of  fact  regarding  the  bound- 
iaries,  supported  Rhode  Island's  appeal  for  a 
charter,  for  Clarendon  said  afterwards  that  the 
draft  which  Clarke  presented  had  in  it  expressions 

8 


114    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

that  were  disliked,  but  that  the  charter  was  granted 
out  of  regard  for  Winthrop. 

The  Rhode  Island  charter  passed  the  seals 
July  8,  1663,  and  was  received  in  the  colony  four 
months  later  with  great  joy  and  thanksgiving. 
It  created  a  common  government  for  all  the  towns, 
guaranteeing  full  liberty  "in  religious  concern- 
ments'' and  freedom  from  all  obligations  to  con- 
form to  the  ''litturgy,  formes,  and  ceremony es  of 
the  Church  of  England,  or  take  or  subscribe  the 
oathes  and  articles  made  and  established  in  that 
behalfe."  This  may  have  been  the  phrase  that 
Clarendon,  who  was  a  High  Churchman,  objected 
to  when  the  draft  was  presented.  The  form  of 
government  was  similar  in  all  essential  particulars 
to  that  of  Connecticut. 

Rhode  Island's  enthusiasm  in  obtaining  a  char- 
ter is  not  difficult  to  understand.  That  amphibi- 
ous colony,  consisting  of  mainland,  islands,  and  a 
large  body  of  water,  was  inhabited  by  "poor  de- 
spised peasants,"  as  Governor  Brenton  described 
them,  "living  remote  in  the  woods"  and  subject 
to  the  "envious  and  subtle  contrivances  of  our 
neighbour  colonies  round  about  uS;,  who  are  in  a 
combination  united  together  to  swallow  us  up." 
The  colony  had  not  been  asked  to  join  the  New 


WINNING  THE  CHARTERS  116 

England  Confederation,  and  its  leaders  were  con- 
vinced that  the  members  of  the  Confederation 
were  in  league  to  filch  away  their  lands  and,  by 
driving  them  into  the  sea,  to  eliminate  the  colony 
altogether.  Plymouth,  seeking  a  better  harbor 
than  that  of  Plymouth  Bay,  claimed  the  eastern 
mainland  as  well  as  the  chief  islands.  Hog,  Co- 
nanicut,  and  Aquidneck;  Massachusetts  claimed 
Pawtuxet,  Warwick,  and  the  Narragansett  coun- 
try generally;  while  Connecticut  wished  to  push 
her  eastern  boundary  as  far  beyond  the  Pawcatuck 
River  (the  present  boundary)  as  she  might  be  able 
to  do.  Had  each  of  these  colonies  made  good  its 
claim,  there  would  have  been  little  left  of  Rhode 
Island,  and  we  do  not  wonder  that  the  settlers 
looked  upon  themselves  as  fighting,  with  their 
backs  to  the  sea,  for  their  very  existence.  Hence 
they  welcomed  the  charter  with  the  joy  of  one 
relieved  of  a  great  burden,  for,  though  the  bound- 
ary question  remained  unsettled,  the  charter 
assured  the  colony  of  its  right  to  exist  under 
royal  protection. 


CHAPTER  VII 


MASSACHUSETTS  DEFIANT 

Massachusetts  was  yet  to  be  taken  in  hand. 
The  English  authorities  had  become  convinced 
that  a  satisfactory  settlement  of  all  the  difficul- 
ties in  New  England  could  be  undertaken  not  in 
England,  where  the  facts  were  hard  to  get  at,  but 
in  America.  Lord  Clarendon,  the  Chancellor,  had 
been  in  correspondence  with  Samuel  Maverick, 
an  early  settler  in  New  England  and  for  many 
years  a  resident  of  Boston  and  New  Amsterdam. 
As  an  Anglican,  Maverick  had  sympathized  with 
the  opposition  in  Massachusetts  led  by  Dr. 
Robert  Child,  and  had  been  debarred  from  all 
civil  and  religious  rights  in  the  colony;  but  he 
was  a  man  of  sobriety  and  good  judgment,  whose 
chief  cause  of  offense  was  a  difference  of  opinion 
as  to  how  a  colony  should  conduct  its  government. 
The  fact  that  he  had  been  able  to  get  on  with  the 
Massachusetts  men  shows  that  his  attitude  had 

116 


MASSACHUSETTS  DEFIANT  117 

never  been  seriously  aggressive,  for  though  he 
certainly  had  no  liking  for  the  policy  of  the  colony, 
he  does  not  appear  to  have  been  influenced  by 
any  hostility  towards  Massachusetts. 

Happening  to  be  in  England  at  this  juncture, 
Maverick  was  called  upon  by  the  Chancellor  to 
state  the  case  against  the  colony,  and  this  he  did 
in  several  letters,  giving  many  instances  of  the 
colony's  disloyalty  and  injustice,  and  recommend- 
ing that  its  privileges  be  taken  away,  just  as  it 
had  taken  away  the  privileges  of  others.  To 
this  suggestion  Clarendon  paid  no  heed,  for  it  was 
no  part  of  the  royal  purpose  to  drive  the  colonies 
to  desperation  at  a  time  when  the  King  was  but 
newly  come  to  his  throne  and  needed  all  his  re- 
sources in  the  struggle  with  the  Dutch,  But  to 
Maverick's  further  suggestions  that  New  Nether- 
land  be  reduced,  that  Massachusetts  be  regulated, 
and  that  commissioners  be  sent  over  to  accomplish 
these  ends,  he  expressed  himself  as  favorable,  and 
all  were  finally  accepted  by  the  Government. 
Maverick's  opinion  that  British  control  should  be 
exercised  over  a  British  possession  and  that  the 
government  of  such  a  possession  should  not  be 
conducted  after  the  fashion  of  an  ecclesiastical 
society  happened  to  coincide  with  that  of  the 


118    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

King's  advisers  and,  as  Maverick  had  lived  in 
America  for  thirty  years,  his  advice  was  listened 
to  with  respect  and  approval.  All  thought  that, 
while  Massachusetts  might  not  be  driven  with 
safety,  she  could  probably  be  persuaded  to  admit 
some  alteration  in  her  methods  of  government  by 
tactful  representatives. 

Had  the  Duke  of  York,  to  whom  was  entrusted 
the  task  of  selecting  the  new  commissioners,  chosen 
his  men  as  wisely  as  Clarendon  had  shaped  his 
policy,  the  results,  as  far  as  Massachusetts  was 
concerned,  might  have  been  more  successful.  The 
trouble  lay  with  the  character  of  the  work  to  be 
done.  On  the  one  hand  the  Dutch  colony  was 
to  be  seized  by  force  of  arms,  a  military  under- 
taking involving  boldness  and  executive  ability; 
on  the  other,  the  Puritan  colonies  were  to  be  re- 
gulated, a  mission  which  called  for  the  utmost 
tact.  The  men  chosen  for  the  work  were  far 
from  the  best  that  might  have  been  selected  to 
bring  back  to  the  path  of  true  obedience  and 
impartial  justice  a  colony  that  was  deemed  wilful 
and  perverse.  They  were  Richard  Nicolls,  a 
favorite  of  the  Duke  of  York  and  the  only  com- 
missioner possessed  of  discrimination  and  wisdom, 
but  who,  as  governor  of  the  yet  unconquered 


MASSACHUSETTS  DEFIANT  119 

Dutch  colony,  was  likely  to  be  taken  up  with  his 
duties  to  such  an  extent  as  to  preclude  his  sharing 
prominently  in  the  diplomatic  part  of  his  mission; 
Colonel  George  Cartwright,  a  soldier,  well-mean- 
ing but  devoid  of  sympathy  and  ignorant  of  the 
conditions  that  confronted  him;  Sir  Robert  Carr, 
the  worst  of  the  four,  unprincipled  and  profligate 
and  without  control  either  of  his  temper  or  his 
passions;  and,  lastly.  Maverick  himself,  opposed 
to  the  existing  order  in  Massachusetts  and  con- 
vinced of  the  necessity  of  radical  changes  in  the 
constitution  of  the  colony.  NicoUs  was  liked 
and  respected;  Cartwright  and  Carr  were  dis- 
trusted as  soldiers  and  strangers,  and  their 
presence  was  resented;  whereas  Maverick  was 
objected  to  as  a  malcontent  who  had  gone  to 
England  to  complain  and  had  returned  with  power 
to  make  trouble.  When  the  colony  heard  of  his 
appointment,  it  sent  a  vigorous  address  of  protest 
to  the  King.  If  Clarendon  expected  from  the 
last  three  of  these  men  the  wisdom  and  discretion 
that  he  said  were  essential  to  the  task,  he  strangely 
misjudged  their  characters.  He  thought,  to  be 
sure,  of  adding  other  commissioners  from  New 
England,  but  he  did  not  know  whom  to  select  and 
was  fearful  of  arousing  local  jealousies.    Yet  con- 


120    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

sidering  the  work  to  be  done,  it  is  doubtful  if  any 
commissioners,  no  matter  how  wisely  selected, 
could  have  performed  the  task,  for  Massachusetts 
did  not  want  to  be  regulated. 

The  general  object  of  the  commission  was  *'to 
unite  and  reconcile  persons  of  very  different  judg- 
ments and  practice  in  all  things,''  particularly 
concerning  ^'the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  people 
and  their  joint  submission  and  obedience  to  us 
and  our  government/'  /More  specifically,  the 
commissioners  were  to  effect  the  overthrow  of 
the  Dutch,  investigate  conditions  among  the 
Indians,  capture  the  regicides,  secure  obedience 
to  the  navigation  acts,  look  into  the  question  of 
boundaries,  and  determine  the  title  to  the  Nar- 
ragansett  country,  henceforth  to  be  called  the 
King's  Province.  The  commissioners  were  to 
make  it  clear  that  they  were  not  come  to  interfere 
with  the  prevailing  religious  systems,  but  to  d<f^- 
mand  liberty  of  conscience  for  all,  though  Claren- 
don could  not  repress  the  hope  that  ultimately 
the  New  Englanders  might  return  to  the  Anglican 
fold.  The  secret  instructions  were  even  more 
remarkable  as  evidence  of  a  complete  misunder- 
standing of  conditions  in  New  England.  Claren- 
don wished  to  secure  for  the  Crown  the  power  to 


MASSACHUSETTS  DEFIANT  121 

nominate  or  at  least  to  approve  the  governor  of 
Massachusetts,  to  control  the  militia,  and  to 
examine  and  correct  the  laws  —  powers,  it  may  be 
noted,  which  were  exercised  in  every  royal  colony 
as  a  matter  of  course.  He  suggested  that  the 
commissioners  interest  themselves  in  the  elec- 
tions so  far  as  *'to  gett  men  of  the  best  reputa- 
tion and  most  peaceably  inclined*'  chosen  to  the 
assembly,  but  he  cautioned  them  to  proceed 
very  warily''  in  some  of  these  things.  He  had  a 
hope  that  Massachusetts  might  be  so  wrought 
upon  as  to  choose  NicoUs  for  her  governor  and 
Carr  for  her  major-general,  but  in  this,  as  in 
the  pious  hope  of  a  return  of  the  Puritans  to 
the  Church  of  England,  he  reckoned  without  a 
knowledge  of  the  grimness  of  the  Massachusetts 
temper. 

The  commissioners  reached  Boston,  en  route  for 
New  Amsterdam,  late  in  July,  1664,  asked  for 
troops,  and  demanded  the  repeal  of  the  franchise 
law.  /The  magistrates  took  the  precaution  to 
conceal  the  charter;  they  were  also  heartily  glad 
when  the  commissioners  departed  on  their  errand 
of  conquest  and  hoped  they  would  not  return. 
The  general  court,  having  modified  the  franchise 
law  suflSciently  to  meet  the  letter  of  the  King's 


122    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

command,  wrote  His  Majesty  that  they  wished  he 
would  recall  his  emissaries;  and  when  the  magis- 
trates discovered  that  this  impertinent  demand 
not  only  failed  of  its  object  but  drew  down  upon 
the  colony  a  royal  rebuke,  with  characteristic 
shrewdness  they  shifted  their  ground  and  prepared 
to  meet  the  commissioners  in  fair  contest,  wearing 
out  their  patience  and  thwarting  their  plans  by 
every  available  device.  In  the  meantime,  the 
four  men  were  completing  the  conquest  and  paci- 
fication of  New  Netherland,  and  rearranging  the 
boundary  diflSculties  with  Connecticut.  Then 
Maverick  and  Cartwright  passed  on  to  Boston, 
where  they  were  joined  in  February  by  Carr, 
NicoUs  remaining  in  New  York.  The  three  men, 
making  Boston  their  headquarters,  visited  Ply- 
mouth, Newport,  and  Hartford,  where  they  were 
received,  according  to  their  account,  ''with  great 
expressions  of  loyalty''  —  a  statement  which,  if 
true,  shows  how  successfully  the  colonists  sup- 
pressed their  deeper  feelings.  Having  taken  the 
King's  Province  under  the  royal  protection,  and 
postponed  for  later  consideration  the  question  of 
the  boundary  line  between  Rhode  Island  and  Con- 
necticut, with  new  complaints  against  Massachu- 
setts ringing  in  their  ears,  they  returned  to  Boston 


MASSACHUSETTS  DEFIANT  123 

to  meet  the  defiant  magistrates.  There  NicoUs 
joined  them  in  May. 

The  Massachusetts  mission  was  hopeless  from 
the  beginning.  The  magistrates  and  general 
court  would  not  admit  the  right  of  the  commis- 
sioners to  interfere  in  any  way  with  governmental 
procedure  or  with  the  course  of  justice;  and  stand- 
ing with  absolute  firmness  on  the  powers  granted 
by  the  charter  and  pointing  to  the  recent  renewal 
by  the  King  as  a  full  confirmation  of  all  their 
privileges,  they  denied  the  validity  of  the  royal 
mission  and  refused  to  discuss  the  question  of 
jurisdiction.  The  commissioners  said  very  plainly 
that  Massachusetts  had  not  administered  the 
oath  of  allegiance  or  permitted  the  use  of  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer,  as  she  had  promised  to  do,  and, 
as  for  the  new  franchise  law,  they  did  not  under- 
stand it  themselves  and  did  not  believe  it  would 
meet  the  royal  requirements.  To  none  of  these 
points  did  the  magistrates  make  any  sufficient 
reply,  but,  feeling  convinced  that  safety  lay  in 
avoiding  decisions,  they  preferred  rather  to  leave 
the  matter  ambiguous  than  to  attempt  any  clear- 
ing up  of  the  points  at  issue. 

But  when  the  commissioners  took  up  the  ques- 
tion of  appeals  and  announced  their  determina- 


124    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

tion  to  sit  as  a  court  of  justice,  the  issue  was  more 
fairly  joined.  The  magistrates  quoted  the  text 
of  the  charter  to  show  that  the  colony  had  full 
power  over  all  judicial  affairs,  while  the  commis- 
sioners cited  their  instructions  as  a  sufficient 
warrant  for  their  right  to  hear  complaints  against 
the  colony.  A  deadlock  ensued,  but  in  the  end 
the  colony  triumphed.  After  spending  a  month 
in  fruitless  negotiations,  the  commissioners  gave 
up  the  struggle,  preferring  to  leave  the  conduct 
of  Massachusetts  to  be  passed  upon  by  the  Crown 
rather  than  to  prolong  the  controversy.  For  the 
time  being,  the  Massachusetts  men  had  their 
own  way;  but  they  had  raised  a  serious  and  dan- 
gerous question,  that  of  their  allegiance  and  its 
obligations,  for,  as  the  commissioners  said,  "The 
King  did  not  grant  away  his  soveraigntie  over 
you  when  he  made  you  a  corporation.  When 
His  Majestic  gave  you  power  to  make  wholesome 
lawes  and  to  administer  justice,  he  parted  not 
with  his  right  of  judging  whether  those  laws  are 
wholsom,  or  whether  justice  was  administered 
accordingly  or  no.  When  His  Majestic  gave  you 
authoritie  over  such  of  his  subjects  as  lived  within 
the  limits  of  your  jurisdiction,  he  made  them  not 
your  subjects  nor  you  their  supream  authority/' 


MASSACHUSETTS  DEFIANT  125 

Had  the  magistrates  been  wiser  men,  less  home- 
bred and  provincial,  and  possessed  of  wider  vision, 
they  would  have  foreseen  the  dangers  that  con- 
fronted them.  But  Bellingham  and  Leverett, 
the  leading  representatives  of  the  policy  of  no 
surrender,  were  not  men  gifted  with  foresight,  and 
they  remained  unmoved  by  the  last  threat  of  the 
commissioners  that  it  would  be  hazardous  to 
deny  the  King's  supremacy,  for  "  'tis  possible 
that  the  charter  which  you  so  much  idolize  may 
be  forfeited." 

The  magistrates  were  undoubtedly  influenced 
by  the  character  of  the  commissioners  and  their 
rough  and  ready  methods  of  procedure.  Had  all 
been  as  honorable  and  upright  as  NicoUs,  who 
unfortunately  took  but  little  part  in  the  negotia- 
tions, the  outcome  might  have  been  different. 
But  there  is  reason  to  think  otherwise.  The 
Massachusetts  leaders  took  the  ground  that  if 
they  yielded  any  part  they  must  eventually  yield 
all,  and  they  wanted  no  interference  from  outside 
in  their  government.  Having  ruled  themselves 
for  thirty  years  as  they  thought  best,  they  were 
not  disposed  to  admit  that  the  King  had  any  rights 
in  the  colony;  and  they  believed  that  by  steady 
resistance  or  by  dilatory  practices  they  could 


126    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

stave  off  intervention  and  that,  with  the  danger 
once  removed,  the  colony  would  be  allowed  to 
continue  in  its  own  course.  In  a  measure  they 
were  justified  in  their  belief.  The  King  recalled 
the  commissioners,  and,  though  he  wrote  a 
letter  declaring  that  Massachusetts  had  shown 
a  great  want  of  duty  and  respect  for  the  royal 
authority,  he  went  no  further  than  to  command 
the  colony  to  send  agents  to  England  to  answer 
there  the  questions  that  had  not  been  settled 
during  the  stay  of  the  commissioners  at  Boston. 
But  the  colony  did  not  take  this  command  seri- 
ously and  sent  no  agents.  Nicolls,  always  temper- 
ate in  speech,  wrote  in  1666:  "The  grandees  of 
Boston  are  too  proud  to  be  dealt  with,  saying 
that  His  Majesty  is  well  satisfied  with  their 
loyalty." 

The  grandees"  were  playing  a  shrewd  but  none 
too  wise  a  game.  Affairs  in  England  were  not 
favorable  to  the  pursuit  of  a  rigorous  policy  at 
this  time.  The  Dutch  war,  the  fire  and  epidemic 
in  London,  and  the  consequent  suspension  of  all 
outside  activities,  had  thrown  governmental  busi- 
ness into  disorder  and  confusion.  Clarendon, 
whose  influence  was  waning,  was  soon  to  lose  his 
post  as  Chancellor.   The  negotiations  which  ended 


MASSACHUSETTS  DEFIANT  127 

in  the  treaty  of  Breda,  and  the  threatening  policy 
of  Louis  XIV,  now  beginning  to  take  a  form  omi- 
nous to  the  Protestant  states  of  Europe,  distracted 
men's  minds  at  home,  and  the  Massachusetts 
problem  was  for  the  moment  lost  sight  of  in  the 
presence  of  the  larger  issues.  The  colony  returned 
to  its  former  position  of  independence  and  soon 
reasserted  its  former  authority  over  New  Hamp- 
shire and  Maine.  To  all  appearances  the  failure 
of  the  royal  commissioners  was  complete,  but 
appearances  were  deceptive.  The  issue  lay  not 
merely  between  a  Stuart  King  and  a  colony  seek- 
ing to  preserve  its  liberties;  it  was  part  of  the 
larger  and  more  fundamental  issue  of  the  place  of 
a  colony  in  England's  newly  developed  policy  of 
colonial  subordination  and  control.  Neither  was 
Massachusetts  a  persecuted  democracy.  No  mod- 
ern democratic  state  would  ever  vest  such  powers 
in  the  hands  of  its  magistrates  and  clergy,  nor 
would  any  modern  people  accept  such  oppres- 
sive and  unjust  legislation  as  characterized  these 
early  New  England  communities.  In  any  case, 
the  contemptuous  attitude  of  Massachusetts  and 
her  disregard  of  the  royal  commands  were  not 
forgotten;  and  when,  a  few  years  later,  the  authori- 
ties in  England  took  up  in  earnest  the  enforcement 


128    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

of  the  new  colonial  policy  as  defined  by  acts  of 
Parliament  and  royal  orders  and  proclamations, 
the  colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay  was  the  first  to 
feel  the  weight  of  the  royal  displeasure. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


WARS  WITH  THE  INDIANS 

The  period  from  1660  to  1675,  a  time  of  read- 
justment in  the  affairs  of  the  New  England  colo- 
nies, was  characterized  by  widespread  excitement 
and  deep  concern  on  the  part  of  the  colonies  every- 
where. Scarcely  a  section  of  the  territory  from 
Maine  to  the  frontier  of  New  York  and  the  towns 
of  Long  Island  but  felt  the  strain  of  impending 
change  in  its  political  status.  The  winning  of 
the  charters  and  the  capture  of  New  Amsterdam 
were  momentous  events  in  the  lives  of  the  colonists 
of  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut;  while  the  agita- 
tion for  the  annexation  of  New  Haven  and  the 
acrimonious  debate  that  accompanied  it  must 
have  stirred  profoundly  the  towns  of  that  colony 
and  have  led  to  local  controversies,  rivalries,  and 
contentions  that  kept  the  inhabitants  in  a  con- 
tinual state  of  perturbation.  On  Long  Island 
before  1664,  the  uncertainty  as  to  jurisdiction, 

9  129 


130    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

due  to  grave  doubts  as  to  the  meaning  of  Con- 
necticut's charter,  aroused  the  towns  from  East- 
hampton  and  Southold  on  the  east  to  Flushing 
and  Gravesend  on  the  west,  and  divided  the  people 
into  discordant  and  clashing  groups.  Captain 
John  Scott,  already  mentioned,  an  adventurer 
and  soldier  of  fortune  who  at  one  time  or  another 
seems  to  have  made  trouble  in  nearly  every  part 
of  the  British  world,  appeared  at  this  time  in 
Long  Island  and,  denying  Connecticut's  title  to 
the  territory,  proclaimed  the  King.  In  January, 
1664,  he  established  a  government  at  Setauket, 
with  himself  as  president.  This  event  set  the 
towns  in  an  uproar;  Captain  Young  from  South- 
old,  upholding  Connecticut's  claim,  came  ""with  a 
trumpet"  to  Hempstead;  New  Haven  men  crossed 
Long  Island  Sound  to  support  Scott's  cause; 
and  at  last  Connecticut  herself  sent  over  oflScers 
to  seize  the  insurgents.  Though  Scott  said  he 
would  "sacrifice  his  heart's  blood  upon  the  ground" 
before  he  would  yield,  he  was  taken  and  carried 
in  chains  to  Hartford. 

Both  Plymouth  and  Massachusetts  sent  letters 
protesting  against  the  treatment  of  Scott,  and  the 
heat  engendered  among  the  members  of  the  New 
England  Confederation  was  intensified  by  the 


WARS  WITH  THE  INDIANS  131 

controversy  over  New  Haven  and  the  "uncomfor- 
table debates'*  regarding  the  title  to  the  Nar- 
ragansett  territory.  Massachusetts  wrote  to  Con- 
necticut in  1662,  "We  cannot  a  little  wonder  at 
your  proceeding  so  suddenly  to  extend  your  author- 
ity to  the  trouble  of  your  friends  and  confederates''; 
to  which  Connecticut  replied,  hoping  that  Massa- 
chusetts would  stop  laying  further  temptations 
before  "our  subjects  at  Mistack  of  disobedience 
to  this  government."  The  matter  was  debated  for 
many  years,  and  it  was  not  until  1672  that  Mas- 
sachusetts recognized  Connecticut's  title  under 
the  charter  and  yielded,  not  because  it  thought 
the  claim  just  but  because  "it  was  judged  by  us 
more  dangerous  to  the  common  cause  of  New 
England  to  oppose  than  by  our  forbearance  and 
yielding  to  endeavour  to  prevent  a  mischief  to 
us  both." 

Rhode  Island  conditions  were  equally  un- 
settled, for  the  inhabitants  of  the  border  towns  did 
not  know  certainly  in  what  colony  they  were  sit- 
uated or  what  authority  to  recognize;  and  though 
these  doubts  affected  but  little  the  daily  life  of  the 
farmer,  they  did  affect  the  title  to  his  lands  and 
the  payment  of  his  taxes,  and  threw  suspicion 
upon  all  legal  processes  and  transactions.  The 


132    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

situation  was  even  more  disturbed  in  the  regions 
north  of  Massachusetts,  where  the  status  of 
Maine  and  New  Hampshire  was  undecided  and 
where  the  coming  of  the  royal  commissioners  only 
served  to  throw  the  inhabitants  into  a  new  fer- 
ment. The  claims  of  Mason  and  Gorges  were 
revived  by  their  descendants,  and  the  King  per- 
emptorily ordered  Massachusetts  to  surrender  the 
provinces.  Agents  of  Gorges  appeared  in  the  terri- 
tory and  demanded  an  acknowledgment  of  their  au- 
thority; the  commissioners  themselves  attempted 
to  organize  a  government  and  to  exercise  jurisdic- 
tion there  in  the  King's  name;lbut  in  1668  Massa- 
chusetts, denying  all  other  pretensions,  adopted 
a  resolution  asserting  her  full  right  of  control, 
and,  sending  commissioners  with  a  military  escort 
to  York,  resumed  jurisdiction  of  the  province.' 
The  inhabitants  did  not  know  what  to  do.  Some 
upheld  the  Gorges  agents  and  the  commission- 
ers; others  adhered  to  Massachusetts.  Even  in 
Massachusetts  itself  there  were  grave  differ- 
ences of  opinion,  for  the  younger  generation  did 
not  always  follow  the  old  magistrates,  and  the 
people  of  Boston  were  developing  views  both 
of  government  and  of  the  proper  relations  to- 
ward England  that  were  at  variance  with  those 


WARS  WITH  THE  INDIANS  133 

of  the  more  conservative  country  towns  and 
districts. 

The  larger  disputes  between  the  colonies  were 
frequently  accompanied  with  lesser  disputes  be- 
tween the  towns  over  their  boundaries;  and  both 
at  this  time  and  for  years  afterwards  there  was 
scarcely  an  important  settlement  in  New  England 
that  did  not  have  some  trouble  with  its  neighbor. 
In  1666  Stamford  and  Greenwich  came  to  blows 
over  their  dividing  line,  and  in  1672  men  from 
New  London  and  Lyme  attempted  to  mow  the 
same  piece  of  meadow  and  had  a  pitched  battle 
with  clubs  and  scythes.  Not  many  years  later 
the  inhabitants  of  Windsor  and  Enfield  *^were  so 
fiercely  engaged''  over  a  disputed  strip  of  land, 
reported  an  eye-witness,  that  a  hundred  men  met 
to  decide  this  controversy  by  force,  "a  resolute 
combat'*  ensuing  between  them  ^'in  which  many 
blows  were  given  to  the  exasperating  each  party, 
so  that  the  lives  and  limbs  of  his  Majesties  sub- 
jects were  endangered  thereby.'* 

Though  clubs  and  scythes  and  fists  are  danger- 
ous weapons  enough,  the  only  real  fighting  in 
which  the  colonists  engaged  was  with  the  Indians 
and  with  weapons  consisting  of  pikes  and  muskets. 
Indian  attacks  were  an  ever-present  danger,  for 


134    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  stretches  of  unoccupied  land  between  the 
colonies  were  the  hunting-grounds  of  the  Narra- 
gansetts  of  eastern  Connecticut  and  western 
Rhode  Island,  the  Pequots  of  Connecticut,  the 
Wampanoags  of  Plymouth  and  its  neighborhood, 
the  Pennacooks  of  New  Hampshire,  and  the 
Abenaki  tribes  of  Maine.  Plague  and  starvation 
had  so  far  weakened  the  coast  Indians  before  the 
arrival  of  the  first  colonists  that  the  new  settle- 
ments had  been  but  little  disturbed;  but,  unfortu- 
nately, as  the  first  comers  pushed  into  the  interior, 
founding  new  plantations,  felling  trees,  and  clearing 
the  soil,  and  the  trappers  and  traders  invaded  the 
Indian  hunting-grounds,  carrying  with  them  fire- 
arms and  liquor,  the  Indian  menace  became  serious. 

To  meet  the  Indian  peril,  all  the  colonies  made 
provision  for  a  supply  of  arms  and  for  the  drilling 
of  the  citizen  body  in  militia  companies  or  train- 
bands. But  in  equipment,  discipline,  and  morale 
the  fighting  force  of  New  England  was  very  im- 
perfect. The  troops  had  no  uniforms;  there  was 
a  very  inadequate  commissariat;  and  alarums, 
whether  by  beacon,  drum-beat,  or  discharge  of 
guns,  were  slow  and  unreliable.  Weapons  were 
crude,  and  the  method  of  handling  them  was 
exceedingly  awkward  and  cumbersome.    The  pike 


WARS  WITH  THE  INDIANS  135 

was  early  abandoned  and  the  matchlock  soon 
gave  way  to  the  flintlock  —  both  heavy  and  un- 
wieldy instruments  of  war  —  and  carbines  and 
pistols  were  also  used.  Cavalry  or  mounted  infan- 
try, though  expensive  because  of  horse  and  out- 
fit, were  introduced  whenever  possible.  In  1675, 
Plymouth  had  fourteen  companies  of  infantry 
and  cavalry;  Massachusetts  had  six  regiments, 
including  the  Ancient  and  Honorable  Artillery; 
and  Maine  and  New  Hampshire  had  one  each.J 
Connecticut  had  four  train-bands  in  1662  and  nine 
in  1668,  a  troop  of  dragoneers,  and  a  troop  of 
horse,  but  no  regiments  until  the  next  century. 
For  coast  defense  there  were  forts,  very  inade- 
quately supplied  with  ordnance,  of  which  that  on 
Castle  Island  in  Boston  harbor  was  the  most 
conspicuous,  and,  for  the  frontier,  there  were 
garrison-houses  and  stockades. 

Though  Massachusetts  had  twice  put  herself 
in  readiness  to  repel  attempts  at  coercion  from 
England,  and  though  both  Connecticut  and  New 
Haven  seemed  on  several  occasions  in  danger 
from  the  Dutch,  particularly  after  the  recapture 
of  New  Amsterdam  in  1673,  New  England's  chief 
danger  was  always  from  the  Indians.  Both 
French  and  Dutch  were  believed  to  be  instrumen- 


136    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

tal  in  inciting  Indian  warfare,  one  along  the 
southwestern  border,  the  other  at  various  points 
in  the  north,  notably  in  New  Hampshire  and 
Maine.  But,  except  for  occasional  Indian  forays 
and  for  house-burnings  and  scalpings  in  the  more 
remote  districts,  there  were  only  two  serious  wars 
in  the  seventeenth  century  —  that  against  the 
Pequots  in  1637  and  the  great  War  of  Xing  Philip 
in  1675-1676. 

The  Pequot  War,  which  was  carried  on  by  Con- 
necticut with  a  few  men  from  Massachusetts  and 
a  number  of  Mohegan  allies,  ended  in  the  complete 
overthrow  of  the  Pequot  nation  and  the  exter- 
mination of  nearly  all  its  fighting  force.  It  be- 
gan in  June,  1637,  with  the  successful  attack  by 
Captain  John  Mason  on  the  Pequot  fort  near 
Groton,  and  was  brought  to  an  end  by  the  battle 
of  Fairfield  Swamp,  July  13,  where  the  surviving 
Pequots  made  their  last  stand.  Sassacus,  the 
Pequot  chieftain,  was  murdered  by  the  Mohawks, 
among  whom  he  had  sought  refuge;  and  during 
the  year  that  followed  wandering  members  of  the 
tribe,  whenever  found,  were  slain  by  their  enemies, 
the  Mohegans  and  Narragansetts.  An  entire  In- 
dian people  was  wiped  out  of  existence,  an  achieve- 
ment difficult  to  justify  on  any  ground  save 


WARS  WITH  THE  INDIANS  137 

that  of  the  extreme  necessity  of  either  slaying  or 
being  slain.  The  relentless  pursuit  of  the  scat- 
tered and  dispirited  remnants  of  these  tribes  admits 
of  little  defense. 

The  overthrow  of  the  Pequots  opened  to  settle- 
ment the  region  from  Saybrook  to  Mystic  and  led 
to  a  treaty  in  1638  with  the  Mohegans  and  Narra- 
gansetts,  according  to  which  harmony  was  to 
prevail  and  peace  was  to  reign.  But  the  outcome 
of  this  impracticable  treaty  was  a  five  years' 
struggle  between  the  Mohegan  chieftain,  Uncas, 
actively  allied  with  the  colony  of  Connecticut, 
and  Miantonomo,  sachem  of  the  Narragansetts, 
which  involved  Connecticut  in  a  tortuous  and 
often  dishonorable  policy  of  attempting  to  divide 
the  Indians  in  order  to  rule  them  —  a  policy 
which  led  to  many  embarrassing  negotiations  and 
bloody  conflicts  and  ended  in  the  murder  of  Mian- 
tonomo in  1643,  by  the  Mohegans,  at  the  insti- 
gation of  the  commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies. 
This  alliance  between  Uncas  and  the  colony  lasted 
for  more  than  forty  years.  It  placed  upon  Con- 
necticut the  burden  of  supporting  a  treacherous 
and  grasping  Indian  chief;  it  created  a  great  deal 
of  confusion  in  land  titles  in  the  eastern  part  of 
the  colony  because  of  indiscriminate  Indian  grants; 


138    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

it  started  the  famous  Mohegan  controversy  which 
agitated  the  colony  and  England  also,  and  was 
not  finally  settled  until  1773,  one  hundred  and 
thirty  years  later;  and  it  was,  in  part  at  least, 
a  cause  of  King  Philip's  War,  because  of  the 
colony's  support  of  the  Mohegans  against  their 
traditional  enemies,  the  Narragansetts  and  Ni- 
antics. 

The  presence  of  the  Indians  in  and  near  the 
colonies  rendered  frequent  dealings  with  them  a 
matter  of  necessity.  The  English  settlers  gener- 
ally purchased  their  lands  from  the  Indians, 
paying  in  such  goods  or  implements  or  trinkets 
as  satisfied  savage  need  and  desire.  In  so  doing 
they  acquired,  as  they  supposed,  a  clear  title  of 
ownership,  though  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
what  the  Indian  thought  he  sold  was  not  the 
actual  soil  but  only  the  right  to  occupy  the  land 
in  common  with  himself.  As  the  years  wore  on, 
the  problems  of  reservations,  trade,  and  the  sale  of 
firearms  and  liquor  engaged  the  attention  of  the 
authorities  and  led  to  the  passage  of  many  laws. 
The  conversion  of  the  Indians  to  Christianity 
became  the  object  of  many  pious  efforts,  and  in 
Massachusetts  and  Plymouth  resulted  in  com- 
munities of  "Praying  Indians,''  estimated  in  1675 


WARS  WITH  THE  INDIANS  139 

at  about  four  thousand  individuals.  In  contact 
with  the  white  man  the  Indian  tended  to  deterior- 
ate. He  frequented  the  settlements  often  to  the 
annoyance  of  the  men  and  the  dread  of  the  women 
and  children;  he  got  into  debt,  was  incurably 
slothful  and  idle,  and  developed  an  uncontrollable 
desire  to  drink  and  steal.  Where  the  Indians 
were  not  a  menace,  they  were  a  nuisance,  and  the 
colonies  passed  many  laws  concerning  the  Indians 
which  were  designed  to  meet  the  one  condition  as^ 
well  as  the  other. 

But  the  real  danger  to  New  England  came  not 
from  those  Indians  who  occupied  reservations  and 
hung  around  the  settlements,  but  from  those  who, 
with  savage  spirit  unbroken,  were  slowly  being 
driven  from  their  hunting-grounds  and  nurtured  an 
implacable  hatred  against  the  aggressive  and  relent- 
less pioneers.  The  New  Englanders  numbered  at 
this  time  some  80,000  individuals,  with  an  adult 
and  fighting  population  of  perhaps  16,000;  while 
the  number  of  the  Indians  altogether  may  have 
reached  as  high  as  12,000,  with  the  Narragansetts, 
the  strongest  of  all,  mustering  4,000.  The  final 
struggle  for  possession  of  the  main  part  of  central 
and  southern  New  England  territory  came  in  1675, 
in  what  is  known  as  King  Philip's  War. 


140    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Scarcely  had  the  fears  aroused  by  the  arrival  of 
a  Dutch  fleet  at  New  York  and  the  capture  of  that 
city  been  allayed  by  the  peace  of  Westminster  in 
1674,  when  rumors  of  Indian  unrest  began  to  spread 


through  the  settlements,  and  the  dread  of  Indian 
outbreaks  began  to  arouse  new  apprehensions 
in  the  hearts  of  the  people.  Hitherto  no  Indian 
chieftain  had  proved  himself  a  born  leader  of 
his  people.  Neither  Sessaquem,  Sassacus,  Pum- 
ham,  Uncas,  nor  Miantonomo  had  been  able  to 
quiet  tribal  jealousies  and  draw  to  his  standard 
against  the  English  others  than  his  own  immediate 
followers.  But  now  appeared  a  sachem  who  was 
the  equal  of  any  in  hatred  of  the  white  man  and 
the  superior  of  all  in  generalship,  who  was  gifted 
both  with  the  power  of  appeal  to  the  younger 
Indians  and  with  the  finesse  required  to  rouse 
other  chieftains  to  a  war  of  vengeance.  Philip, 
or  Metacom,  was  the  second  son  of  old  Massasoit, 
the  longtime  friend  of  the  English,  and,  upon  the 
death  of  his  elder  brother  Alexander  in  1662,  be- 
came the  head  of  the  Wampanoags,  with  his  seat 
at  Mount  Hope,  a  promontory  extending  into 
Narragansett  Bay.  Believing  that  his  people  had 
been  wronged  by  the  English,  particularly  by 
those  of  Plymouth  colony,  and  foreseeing  that 


WARS  WITH  THE  INDIANS  141 

he  and  his  people  were  to  be  driven  step  by  step 
westward  into  narrower  and  more  restricted  quar- 
ters, he  began  to  plot  a  great  campaign  of  exter- 
mination. 1  On  June  24,  1675,  a  body  of  Indians 
fell  on  the  town  of  Swansea,  on  the  eastern  side 
of  Narragansett  Bay,  slew  nine  of  the  inhabitants 
and  wounded  seven  others.  Though  assistance 
was  sent  from  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth,  the 
burning  and  massacring  continued,  extending  to 
Rehoboth,  Taunton,  and  towns  northward.  The 
settlements  were  isolated  before  the  troops  could 
reach  them,  their  inhabitants  were  slain,  cabins 
were  burned,  and  prisoners  were  carried  into  cap- 
tivity. The  Rhode  Islanders  fled  to  the  islands; 
elsewhere  settlers  gathered  in  garrisoned  forts  and 
blockhouses  and  in  new  forts  hastily  erected. 

Though  the  authorities  of  Connecticut  and 
Massachusetts  sent  agents  among  the  Nipmucks 
hoping  to  prevent  their  alliance  with  Philip,  the 
effort  failed,  and  by  August  the  tribes  on  the  upper 
Connecticut  had  joined  the  movement  and  now  be- 
gan a  determined  and  systematic  destruction  of  the 
settlements  in  central  New  England.  The  famous 
massacre  and  burning  of  Deerfield  took  place  on 
September  12,  the  surviving  inhabitants  fleeing 
to  Hatfield,  leaving  their  town  in  ruins.  Hatfield, 


142    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Northfield,  Springfield,  and  Westfield  were  at- 
tacked in  turn,  and  though  the  defense  was  some- 
times successful,  more  often  the  defenders  were 
ambushed  and  killed.  So  widespread  was  the 
uprising  that  during  the  autumn,  a  desultory  war- 
fare was  carried  on  as  far  north  as  Falmouth, 
Brunswick,  and  Casco  Bay,  where  at  least  fifty 
Englishmen  were  slain  by  members  of  the  Saco 
and  Androscoggin  tribes. 

As  yet  the  Narragansetts,  bravest  of  all  the 
southern  New  England  Indians,  whose  chief  was 
Canonchet,  son  of  the  murdered  Miantonomo, 
had  taken  no  part  in  the  war.  But  as  rumor 
spread  that  they  had  welcomed  Philip  and  listened 
to  his  appeals  and  were  probably  planning  to  join 
in  the  murderous  fray,  war  was  declared  against 
them  on  November  2,  1675,  and  a  force  of  a  thou- 
sand men  and  horse  from  Plymouth  and  Massa- 
chusetts was  drawn  up  on  Dedham  plain,  under 
the  command  of  General  Josiah  Winslow  and 
Captain  Benjamin  Church.  On  December  19, 
the  greater  part  of  this  force,  aided  by  troops  from 
Connecticut,  fell  on  the  Narragansetts  in  their 
swamp  fort,  south  of  the  present  town  of  Kings- 
ton, and  after  a  fierce  and  bloody  fight  completely 
routed  them,  though  at  a  heavy  loss.    The  tribe 


WARS  WITH  THE  INDIANS  143 

was  driven  from  its  own  territory,  and  Canonchet 
fled  to  the  Connecticut  River,  where  he  established 
a  rallying  point  for  new  forays.  His  followers 
allied  themselves  with  the  Wampanoags  and  Nip- 
mucks  and  began  a  new  series  of  massacres.  In 
February  and  March,  1676,  they  fell  upon  Lan- 
caster, where  they  carried  off  Mrs.  Rowlandson, 
who  has  left  us  a  narrative  of  her  captivity;  upon 
Medfield,  where  fifty  houses  were  burned;  and 
upon  Weymouth  and  Marlborough,  which  were 
raided  and  in  part  destroyed.  Repeated  assaults 
in  other  quarters  kept  the  western  frontier  of 
Massachusetts  in  a  frightful  condition  of  terror; 
settlers  were  ambushed  and  scalped,  others  were 
tortured,  and  many  were  carried  into  captivity. 
Even  the  Pennacooks  of  southern  New  Hampshire 
were  roused  to  action,  though  their  share  in  the 
war  was  small.  Here  a  hundred  warriors  sacked 
a  village;  there  Indians  skulking  along  trails  and 
on  the  outskirts  of  towns  cut  off  individuals  and 
groups  of  individuals,  shooting,  scalping,  and  burn- 
ing them.  No  one  was  safe.  Again  the  commis- 
sioners of  the  United  Colonies  met  in  council  and 
ordered  a  more  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  cam- 
paign. More  troops  were  levied  and  garrison 
posts  fortified,  but  the  first  results  were  disastrous. 


144    THE  FATEBERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Captain  Pierce  of  Scituate  was  ambushed  at  Black- 
stone's  River  near  Rehoboth,  and  his  command 
was  completely  wiped  out.  Sudbury  was  de- 
stroyed in  April,  and  a  relieving  force  escaped 
only  with  heavy  loss. 

But  the  strength  of  the  Indians  was  waning. 
Canonchet,  run  to  earth  near  the  Pawtuxet  River, 
was  captured  and  sentenced  to  death,  and  his  ex- 
ecution was  entrusted  to  Oneko,  the  son  of  Uncas. 
His  head  was  cut  off  and  carried  to  Hartford,  and 
his  body  was  committed  to  the  flames.  The  loss 
of  Canonchet  was  a  bitter  blow  to  Philip,  who  now 
saw  his  allies  falling  away  and  himself  deserted 
by  all  but  a  few  faithful  followers.  The  campaign 
—  at  last  well  in  hand  and  directed  by  that  prince 
of  Indian  fighters,  Benjamin  Church,  now  commis- 
sioned a  colonel  by  General  Winslow  —  was  ap- 
proaching an  end.  Using  friendly  savages  as  scouts, 
Colonel  Church  gradually  located  and  captured 
stray  bodies  of  Indians  and  brought  them  as 
captives  to  Plymouth.  Finally,  coming  on  the 
trail  of  Philip  himself,  he  first  intercepted  his  fol- 
lowers, and  then,  relentlessly  pursuing  the  fleeing 
chieftain  from  one  point  to  another,  tracked  him 
to  his  lair  at  his  old  stronghold.  Mount  Hope. 
There  the  great  chief  who  had  terrorized  New 


WARS  WITH  THE  INDIANS  145 

England  for  nearly  a  year  was  slain  by  one  of 
his  own  race.  His  ornaments  and  treasure  were 
seized  by  the  soldiers,  and  his  crown,  gorget,  and 
two  belts,  all  of  gold  and  silver  of  Indian  make, 
were  sent  as  a  present  to  Charles  II.  With  the 
death  of  Philip,  August  12, 1676,  the  whole  move- 
ment collapsed,  and  the  remaining  hostile  Indians, 
dispersed  and  in  flight,  with  their  leaders  gone  and 
starvation  threatening,  sought  refuge  among  the 
northern  tribes.  Thus  the  last  effort  to  check  the 
English  advance  in  southern  and  central  New 
England  was  brought  to  an  end.  From  this,  time 
on,  the  Indians  in  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island, 
and  Connecticut  lingered  for  a  century  and  a  half, 
a  steadily  dwindling  remnant,  wards  of  the  govern- 
ments and  occupants  of  reservations,  until  they 
ceased  to  exist  as  a  separate  people. 

The  havoc  wrought  by  the  war  was  a  great  blow 
to  the  prosperity  of  New  England.  Probably 
more  than  six  hundred  whites  had  been  slain  or 
captured,  and  hundreds  of  houses  and  a  score  of 
villages  had  been  burnt  or  pillaged;  crops  had 
been  destroyed,  cattle  driven  off,  and  agriculture 
in  many  quarters  brought  to  a  complete  standstill. 
In  1676,  there  was  little  leisure  to  sow  and  less 
to  reap.    Provisions  became  increasingly  scarce; 

10 


146    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

none  could  be  had  near  at  hand,  for  none  of  the 
colonies  had  a  surplus;  and  attempts  to  obtain 
them  from  a  distance  proved  unavailing.  Staples 
for  trade  with  the  West  Indies  decreased;  the  fur 
trade  was  curtailed;  and  fishing  was  hampered 
for  want  of  men.  To  add  to  the  confusion,  a 
plague  vexed  the  colonies.  It  seemed  to  all  as  if 
the  hand  of  God  lay  heavily  upon  New  England, 
and  days  of  humiliation  and  prayer  were  appointed 
to  assuage  the  wrath  of  the  Almighty.  A  Massa- 
chusetts act  of  November,  1675,  ascribed  the  war 
to  the  judgment  of  God  upon  the  colony  for  its 
sins,  among  which  were  included  an  excess  of 
apparel,  the  wearing  of  long  hair,  and  the  rudeness 
of  worship,  all  marks  of  an  apostasy  from  the  Lord 
"with  a  great  backsliding.''  The  Puritan  fear  of 
divine  displeasure  adds  a  relieving  note  to  the 
general  despondency  and  must  have  stiffened  the 
determination  of  the  orthodox  leaders  to  resist  to 
the  utmost  all  attempts  to  liberalize  the  life  of  the 
colony  or  to  alter  its  character  as  a  religious  state 
patterned  after  the  divine  plan.  King  Philip's 
War  probably  strengthened  the  position  of  the 
conservative  element  in  Massachusetts. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE  BAY  COLONY  DISCIPLINED 

Except  for  the  northern  frontier,  where  Indian 
forays  and  atrocities  continued  for  many  years 
longer,  the  last  great  struggle  with  the  Indians 
in  New  England  was  finished.  The  next  danger 
came  from  a  different  quarter  and  in  a  different 
form.  In  June,  1676,  two  months  before  the 
Indian  War  was  over,  one  Edward  Randolph  ar- 
rived from  England  to  make  an  inquiry  into  the 
affairs  of  Massachusetts.  That  colony  had  scarcely 
weathered  the  ever-threatening  peril  of  the  New 
World  when  it  was  called  upon  to  face  an  at- 
tack from  the  Old  which  endangered  the  con- 
tinuance of  those  precious  privileges  for  which  the 
magistrates  at  Boston  had  contended  with  a  vigor 
shrewd  rather  than  wise.  As  we  have  seen,  the 
position  that  Massachusetts  assumed  as  a  colony 
largely  independent  of  British  control  was  incom- 
patible with  England's  colonial  and  commercial 

147 


148    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

policy,  a  position  that  was  certain  to  be  called  in 
question  as  soon  as  the  authorities  at  home  were 
able  to  give  serious  attention  to  it. 

This  opportunity  did  not  arrive  until,  in  1674, 
the  plantations  council  was  dismissed,  and  colonial 
business  was  handed  over  to  the  Privy  Council 
and  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  standing  committee 
of  that  body  known  as  the  Lords  of  Trade.  This 
committee,  which  was  more  dignified  and  authori- 
tative than  had  been  the  old  council,  at  once 
assumed  a  firmer  tone  toward  the  colonies.  It 
caused  a  proclamation  to  be  issued  announcing 
the  royal  determination  to  enforce  the  acts  of 
trade,  and  it  made  the  King's  will  known  in  Amer- 
ica by  means  of  new  instructions  to  the  royal 
governors  there.  It  stated  clearly  the  purpose 
of  the  Government  to  bring  the  colonies  into  a 
position  of  greater  dependence  on  the  Crown  in  the 
interest  of  the  trade  and  revenues  of  the  kingdom, 
and  it  showed  no  inclination  to  grant  Massachu- 
setts, with  all  the  charges  and  complaints  against 
her,  preferential  treatment.  At  the  same  time  it 
was  not  disposed  to  pay  much  attention  to  religious 
diflFerences,  minor  misdemeanors,  and  neighbor- 
hood quarrels,  if  only  the  colony  would  con- 
form to  British  policy  in  all  that  concerned  the 


THE  BAY  COLONY  DISCIPLINED  149 

royal  prerogative  and  the  authority  of  Parliament;  t 
^jbut  it  made  it  perfectly  plain  that  continued 
infractions  of  parliamentary  acts  and  royal  com- 
mands would  not  be  condoned. 

Had  the  leaders  of  Massachusetts  been  more 
complaisant  and  less  given  to  a  policy  of  evasion 
and  delay,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the  colony  would 
have  been  allowed  to  retain  its  privileges;  and 
had  they  been  less  absorbed  in  themselves  and 
more  observant  of  the  world  outside,  they  might 
have  seen  the  changes  that  were  coming  over  the 
temper  and  purpose  of  those  in  England  who 
were  shaping  the  relations  between  England  and 
her  colonies.  But  Massachusetts  had  grown  pro- 
vincial since  the  Restoration,  looking  backward 
rather  than  forward  and  moving  in  very  narrow 
channels  of  thought  and  life,  so  that  she  was 
wrapped  up  in  matters  of  purely  local  interest. 
The  clergy  were  struggling  to  maintain  their 
control  in  colony  and  college,  while  the  deputies 
in  the  legislature,  representing  in  the  main  the 
conservative  country  districts,  were  upholding 
the  clerical  party  against  some  of  the  magistrates, 
who  represented  the  town  of  Boston  and  were  in- 
clined to  take  a  more  liberal  and  progressive  view 

<-.  1 

of  the  matter.    These  country  members  saw  in 

i 


150    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

England's  attitude  only  the  desire  of  a  despotic 
Stuart  regime  to  suppress  the  liberties  of  a  Puritan 
commonwealth,  and  failed  to  see  that  the  investi- 
gation into  the  affairs  of  Massachusetts  was  but 
an  effort  to  establish  a  colonial  policy  fundamental 
to  England's  welfare  and  power.  ' 

It  cannot  be  said  that,  from  1660  to  1684,  the 
Government  in  England  displayed  undue  animus 
toward  the  colony.    It  allowed  Massachusetts  to 
do  a  great  many  things  that  in  law  she  had  no 
right  to  do,  such  as  coining  money  and  issuing  a 
charter  to  Harvard  College.    Its  demand  for  a 
broadening  of  the  Massachusetts  franchise  was  in 
the  interest  of  liberty  and  not  against  it,  and  the  in- 
sistence on  freedom  of  worship  deserves  no  reproof. 
Its  condemnation  of  many  of  the  Massachusetts 
laws  as  oppressive  and  unjust  shows  that  in  some 
respects  legal  opinion  in  England  at  this  time  was 
more  advanced  than  that  in  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut,  and,  even  at  its  worst,  English 
law  did  not  go  to  the  Mosaic  code  for  its  prece- 
dents.   There  is  a  distinct  note  of  cruelty  and 
oppression  in  some  of  the  Massachusetts  and  Con- 
necticut legislation  at  this  time,  and  many  of  the 
Puritan  measures  were  harsh  and  arbitrary  and 
liable  to  abuse.    Even  the  Government's  support 


THE  BAY  COLONY  DISCIPLINED  151 

of  the  Mason  and  Gorges  claims  was  not  dishonor- 
able, and  while  it  may  have  been  unwise  and,  in 
equity,  unjust,  it  was  not  without  excuse.  The 
Government  listened  to  complaints  of  persecution, 
as  any  sovereign  power  is  required  to  do,  and  was 
naturally  impressed  with  the  weightiness  of  some 
of  the  charges;  yet  so  little  inclined  was  it  to 
tamper  with  Massachusetts  that  the  colony  might 
have  succeeded,  for  a  longer  time  at  least,  in 
maintaining  the  integrity  of  its  control,  had  not 
the  question  of  colonial  trade  brought  matters  to 
a  crisis. 

Under  Charles  II,  finances  presented  a  difficult 
problem,  for  Parliament  in  controlling  appropria- 
tions took  no  responsibility  for  the  collection 
of  money  granted.  To  meet  the  deficit  which 
during  the  earlier  years  of  the  reign  was  ever 
present,  efforts  were  made  to  increase  the  revenue 
from  customs,  and  so  successful  was  this  policy 
that,  after  1675,  these  customs  revenues  came  to 
be  looked  upon  as  among  England's  greatest 
sources  of  wealth.  Now,  inasmuch  as  trade  with 
the  colonies  was  one  of  the  largest  factors  contri- 
buting to  this  result,  England,  as  she  could  not 
afford  to  maintain  colonies  that  would  do  nothing 
to  aid  her,  came  more  and  more  to  value  her 


152    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

overseas  possessions  for  their  commercial  import- 
ance, classing  as  valuable  assets  those  that 
advanced  her  prosperity,  and  treating  as  insub- 
ordinate those  that  disregarded  the  acts  of  trade 
and  thwarted  her  policy.  The  independence  that 
Massachusetts  claimed  was  diametrically  opposed 
to  the  growing  English  notion  that  a  colony  should 
be  subordinate  and  dependent,  should  obey  the 
acts  of  trade  and  navigation,  and  should  recognize 
the  authority  of  the  Crown;  and,  from  what  they 
heard  of  the  temper  of  New  England,  English 
statesmen  suspected  that  Massachusetts  was  doing 
none  of  these  things. 

Edward  Randolph,  who  was  sent  over  in  1676 
to  make  inquiry  into  the  affairs  of  the  colony, 
was  a  native  of  Canterbury,  a  former  student  of 
Gray's  Inn,  and  at  this  time  forty-three  years  old. 
The  fact  that  he  was  connected  by  marriage  with 
the  Mason  family  accounts  for  his  interest  in  the 
efforts  of  Gorges  and  Mason  to  break  the  hold  of 
Massachusetts  upon  New  Hampshire  and  Maine. 
He  was  a  personal  acquaintance  of  Sir  Robert 
Southwell,  the  diplomatist,  and  of  Southwell's 
intimate  friend,  William  Blathwayt,  an  influential 
English  official  interested  in  the  colonies.  He 
had  been  in  the  employ  of  the  government,  and 


THE  BAY  COLONY  DISCIPLINED  153 

now,  probably  at  the  instance  of  Southwell  and 
Blathwayt,  he  was  selected  to  fill  the  difficult 
and  thankless  post  of  commissioner  to  New  Eng- 
land. That  he  had  ability  and  courage  no  one 
can  doubt,  and  that  he  pursued  his  course  with  a 
tenacity  that  would  have  won  commendation  in 
other  and  less  controversial  fields,  his  career  shows. 
His  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  Crown  and 
his  loyalty  to  the  Church  of  England  steeled 
him  against  the  almost  incessant  attacks  and 
rebuflFs  that  he  was  called  upon  to  endure,  and 
his  entire  inability  to  see  any  other  cause  than 
his  own  saved  him  from  the  discouragements 
that  must  certainly  have  broken  a  man  more  sensi- 
tive than  himself.  He  exhibited  at  times  some 
of  the  obduracy  of  the  zealot  and  martyr;  at 
others  he  displayed  unexpected  good  sense  in 
protesting  against  extremes  of  action  that  he 
thought  unjust  or  unwise.  He  was  honest  and 
indefatigable  in  the  pursuit  of  what  he  believed 
to  be  his  duty,  and  was  ill-requited  for  his  labors, 
but  he  was  a  persistent  fault-finder  and  his  letters 
are  masterpieces  of  complaint.  He  was  thrice 
married,  his  second  wife  dying  at  the  height  of 
his  troubles  in  Massachusetts,  and  he  had  five 
children,  all  daughters,  one  of  whom  proved  a 


154    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

grievous  disappointment  to  him.  Though  he 
held  many  offices,  he  was  always  in  debt  and 
died  poor,  at  the  age  of  seventy,  in  Accomac 
County  in  Virginia.  He  was  far  from  being  the 
best  man  to  send  to  New  England,  but  his  natural 
obstinacy  and  his  determination  to  overcome  dif- 
ficulties were  intensified  by  the  discourteous  and 
tactless  manner  in  which  he  was  received  by  the 
Puritans.  He  had  no  sympathy  with  the  efforts 
of  the  *'old  faction to  save  the  colony,  and  the 
people  of  Massachusetts  responded  with  a  bitter 
and  lasting  hate. 

Randolph  landed  at  Boston  on  June  10,  and 
remained  in  the  colony  until  the  end  of  July, 
about  six  weeks  altogether.  He  visited  Ply- 
mouth, New  Hampshire,  and  Maine,  interviewed 
men  in  authority  and  all  sorts  of  other  people,  and 
he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  majority  of 
the  inhabitants  were  discontented  with  the  Boston 
regime.  The  magistrates  ignored  his  presence  as 
much  as  they  dared,  refusing  to  recognize  him 
as  anything  but  an  enemy  representing  the  Mason 
and  Gorges  claims,  and  insisting  that  though 
the  King  might  enlarge  their  privileges  he  could 
not  abridge  them.  Randolph,  thoroughly  nettled, 
returned  to  England  prepared  to  do  his  worst. 


THE  BAY  COLONY  DISCIPLINED  155 

He  sent  several  reports  to  the  King  and  constantly 
appeared  before  the  Privy  Council  and  the  Lords 
of  Trade,  each  time  doing  all  the  damage  that  he 
could.  He  had  undoubtedly  got  much  of  his 
information  from  prejudiced  sources  or  from  hear- 
say, and  he  was  as  eager  to  retail  it  as  had  been 
the  Massachusetts  authorities  to  blast  the  moral 
character  of  the  King's  commissioners.  He  de- 
nounced the  "old  faction as  cunning,  deceptive, 
overbearing,  and  disloyal;  he  called  the  clergy 
proud,  ignorant,  imperious,  and  inclined  to  sedi- 
tion; and  he  denounced  those  in  authority  as 
inconsiderable  mechanicks,  packed  by  the  pre- 
vailing party  of  the  factious  ministry,  with  a 
fellow-feeling  both  in  the  command  and  the  pro- 
fits." His  picture  of  the  colony,  containing  much 
that  was  near  the  truth,  was  at  the  same  time 
distorted,  out  of  proportion,  and  in  parts  almost 
a  caricature.  His  most  effective  reports  were 
those  which  laid  stress  upon  the  failure  of  the 
colony  to  obey  the  navigation  acts  and  the  royal 
commands,  and  upon  its  use  of  the  word Common- 
wealth," as  if  the  corporation  were  already  an 
independent  state.  These  reports  were  accepted 
by  the  English  authorities  as  correct  statements 
of  fact,  for  they  seemed  to  be  confirmed  by  the 


156    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

evidence  of  London  merchants  and  by  at  least 
one  West  Indian  governor,  who  knew  the  colony 
and  had  no  personal  interests  at  stake. 

In  October,  1676,  Massachusetts  sent  over  two 
of  its  leading  men,  William  Stoughton,  a  magis- 
trate, and  Peter  Bulkeley,  speaker  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  to  ward  off,  if  possible,  the 
attack  on  the  colony,  but  with  characteristic 
short-sightedness  gave  them  no  authority  to 
discuss  officially  anything  but  the  Mason  and 
Gorges  claims.  For  more  than  two  years  these 
men,  representative  rather  of  the  moderate  party 
than  of  the  "old  faction in  the  colony,  remained 
in  England,  frequently  appearing  before  the  Lords 
of  Trade,  where  they  were  subjected  to  a  searching 
examination  at  the  hands  of  a  not  very  sym- 
pathetic body  of  men.  The  meetings  in  the  Coun- 
cil Chamber  in  Whitehall,  where  the  committee 
sat,  were  occasions  full  of  interest  and  excite- 
ment. At  one  of  them,  on  April  8,  1677,  Stough- 
ton, Bulkeley,  Randolph,  Mason,  and  Sir  Edmund 
Andros,  Governor  of  New  York  for  the  Duke,  were 
all  present,  and  the  agents  must  have  found  the 
situation  awkward  and  embarrassing.  The  com- 
mittee expressed  its  resentment  at  the  colony's 
habit  of  disobedience  and  evasion,  and  showed 


THE  BAY  COLONY  DISCIPLINED  157 

no  inclination  to  adopt  a  moderate  policy,  advo- 
cating, on  the  contrary,  investigation  ^'from  the 
whole  root."  The  position  of  a  Massachusetts 
agent  in  England  during  these  trying  years  was 
most  undesirable,  and  so  many  difficulties  and 
discouragements  did  Stoughton  and  Bulkeley 
encounter  that  several  times  they  asked  for  per- 
mission to  return  home  and  once,  at  least,  had 
to  go  to  the  country  for  their  health.  But  what- 
ever were  the  troubles  of  an  agent  in  England, 
they  were  trifling  as  compared  with  those  which 
confronted  him  at  home  when  he  failed,  as  he 
almost  invariably  did  fail,  to  obtain  all  that  the 
colony  expected.  Cotton  Mather  tells  us  that 
Norton  died  in  1663  of  melancholy  and  chagrin, 
and  that  for  forty  years  there  was  not  one  agent 
but  met  *'with  some  very  fro  ward  entertainment 
among  his  countrymen."  No  wonder  it  was  al- 
ways difficult  to  find  men  who  were  willing  to  go. 

jAt  first  the  Lords  of  Trade  favored  the  sending 
of  a  supplemental  charter  and  the  extending  of  a 
pardon  to  the  colony;  but  as  the  evidence  against 
Massachusetts  accumulated,  they  began  to  con- 
sider the  revision  of  the  laws,  the  appointment  of 
a  collector  of  customs  and  a  royal  governor,  and 
even  the  annulment  of  the  charter  itself.  In 


158    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

short,  they  determined  to  bring  Massachusetts 
under  a  more  palpable  declaration  of  obedience 
to  his  Majesty/'  The  general  court  of  the  colony, 
although  it  had  said  that  "any  breach  in  the  wall 
would  endanger  the  whole,''  was  at  last  frightened 
by  the  news  from  England  and  passed  an  order  in 
October,  1677,  that  the  laws  of  trade  must  be 
strictly  observed,  and  later  magistrates  and  depu- 
ties alike  took  the  oath  of  allegiance  prescribed 
by  the  Crown,  promising  to  drop  the  word  Com- 
monwealth" for  the  future.  The  members  of  the 
asisembly  wrote  an  amazing  letter,  pietistic  and 
cringing,  in  which  they  prostrated  themselves  be- 
fore the  King,  asked  to  be  numbered  among  his 
*'poore  yet  humble  and  loyal  subjects,"  and  begged 
for  a  renewal  of  all  their  privileges.  At  best  such  a 
letter  could  have  done  little  in  England  to  increase 
respect  for  the  colony,  but  any  good  results  ex- 
pected from  it  were  completely  destroyed  by  the 
serious  blunder  which  the  colony  made  at  this 
time  in  purchasing  from  the  Gorges  claimants  the 
title  to  the  province  of  Maine,  which  with  New 
Hampshire  had  recently  been  declared  by  the 
chief  justices  of  the  King's  Bench  and  Common 
Pleas  to  lie  outside  of  the  jurisdiction  of  Massachu- 
setts.   This  attempt  to  obtain,  without  the  royal 


THE  BAY  COLONY  DISCIPLINED  159 

consent,  a  territory  which  the  legal  advisers  of 
the  Crown  had  decided  Massachusetts  could  not 
have,  only  strengthened  the  determination  of  the 
authorities  in  England  to  bring  the  colony  into 
the  King's  hand  by  the  appointment  of  a  royal 
governor.  For  the  moment,  however,  the  upris- 
ing of  Bacon  in  Virginia  and  the  Popish  Plot  in 
England  so  distracted  the  Government  that  it 
was  obliged  to  slight  or  to  postpone  much  of  its 
business.  It  did  succeed  in  settling  the  perplex- 
ing question  of  New  Hampshire,  for,  having  ob- 
tained from  Mason  a  renunciation  of  all  his  claims 
to  the  Government,  though  leaving  him  with  full 
title  to  the  soil,  it  organized  that  territory  as  a 
colony  under  the  control  of  the  Crown. 

With  these  matters  out  of  the  way  or  less  exi- 
gent, the  Lords  of  Trade  returned  to  the  affairs  of 
New  England.  They  wished,  before  proceeding  to 
extremes,  to  give  Massachusetts  another  chance  to 
be  heard;  so,  in  dismissing  the  agents  in  the  autumn 
of  1679,  they  instructed  the  colony  to  send  over 
within  six  months  others  fully  prepared  "to  answer 
the  misdemeanors  imputed  against  them.''  They 
also  decided  to  send  Randolph  back  as  collector 
and  surveyor  of  customs,  with  letters  to  all  the 
New  England  colonies,  ordering  them  to  enforce 


160    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

the  acts  of  trade,  and  another  to  Massachusetts 
requiring  that  she  provide  a  minister  for  those  in 
Boston  who  wished  an  Anglican  church.  Ran- 
dolph, who  left  for  New  England  for  the  second 
time,  in  December,  1678,  has  the  distinction  of 
being  the  first  royal  oflScial  appointed  for  any  of 
the  northern  colonies.  Almost  his  first  task  was 
to  settle  the  province  of  New  Hampshire  under 
royal  authority,  with  a  government  consisting 
of  a  president,  a  council,  and  an  assembly.  Thus 
British  control  in  New  England  was  making  pro- 
gress, and  the  worst  fears  of  the  "old  faction*' 
in  Massachusetts  were  being  realized. 

It  is  diflBcult  to  understand  the  attitude  of 
Massachusetts.  Her  leaders  probably  thought 
that  with  the  settlement  of  the  Mason  and  Gorges 
claims  the  most  serious  source  of  trouble  with 
England  was  disposed  of.  They  believed,  honestly 
enough,  though  the  wish  was  father  to  the  thought, 
that  the  colony  lay  beyond  the  reach  of  Parlia- 
ment and  that  the  laws  of  England  were  bounded 
by  the  four  seas  and  did  not  reach  America. 
Hence  they  deemed  the  navigation  acts  an  invasion 
of  their  liberties  and  could  not  bring  themselves 
to  obey  them.  As  to  England's  new  colonial 
policy,  it  is  doubtful  if  they  grasped  it  at  all. 


THE  BAY  COLONY  DISCIPLINED  161 

or  would  have  acknowledged  it  as  applicable  to 
themselves,  even  if  they  had  understood  it.  The 
experiences  and  reports  of  their  agents  in  England 
seem  to  have  taught  them  nothing  and  served 
only  to  confirm  their  belief  that  a  Stuart  was  a 
tyrant  and  that  all  English  authorities  were  natural 
enemies.  They  had  labored  and  suffered  in  the 
vineyard  of  the  Lord  and  they  wished  to  be  let  alone 
to  enjoy  their  dearly  won  privileges.  Randolph 
wrote,  soon  after  his  arrival  in  New  England,  that 
the  colony  was  acting  "'as  high  as  ever,''  and  that 
"it  was  in  every  one's  mouth  that  they  are  not 
subject  to  the  laws  of  England  nor  were  such 
laws  in  force  until  confirmed  by  their  authority." 
The  colony  neglected  to  send  the  agents  demanded, 
alleging  expense,  the  dangers  of  the  sea,  the  diffi- 
culty of  finding  any  one  to  accept  the  post,  and 
their  belief  that  King  and  council  were  taken  up 
with  matters  of  greater  importance,"  until  finally 
in  September,  1680,  the  King  wrote  an  exceedingly  . 
sharp  letter,  calling  the  excuses  "insufficient  pre- 
tences," and  commanding  that  agents  be  sent 
within  three  months.  Strange  to  say  the  colony 
even  then  allowed  a  year  to  elapse  before  com- 
plying, and  again  instructed  those  whom  they  sent 
to  agree  to  nothing  that  concerned  the  charter. 

zx 


162    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Before  the  agents  arrived  in  the  summer  of 
1682,  the  royal  patience  was  exhausted.  Ran- 
dolph's continued  complaints  that  he  was  ob- 
structed in  every  way  in  the  performance  of  his 
duties;  the  act  of  the  colony  in  setting  up  a  naval 
oflBce  of  its  own;  the  revival  of  an  old  law  imposing 
the  death  penalty  upon  any  one  who  should  "at- 
tempt the  alteration  or  subversion  of  the  frame 
of  government'';  the  opinion  of  the  Attorney- 
General  that  the  colony  had  done  quite  enough 
to  warrant  the  forfeiture  of  its  charter;  and  the 
delay  in  sending  the  agents,  which  seemed  a  fur- 
ther flouting  of  the  royal  commands  —  all  these 
things  brought  matters  to  a  crisis.  Therefore, 
when  finally  the  Massachusetts  agents  reached 
England,  they  found  the  situation  hopeless.  "It 
is  a  hard  service  we  are  engaged  in,"  they  wrote; 
"we  stand  in  need  of  help  from  Heaven."  Their 
want  of  powers  provoked  the  Lords  of  Trade  to 
say  that  unless  they  were  procured,  the  charter 
would  be  forfeited  at  once.  Randolph  was  called 
back  in  May,  1683,  to  aid  in  the  legal  proceed- 
ings which  were  immediately  set  on  foot.  Other 
charters  were  falling:  that  of  the  Bermuda  Com- 
pany was  under  attack;  that  of  the  City  of  Lon- 
don was  already  forfeited;  and  those  of  other 


THE  BAY  COLONY  DISCIPLINED  163 

English  boroughs  were  in  danger.  On  June  27, 
a  writ  of  quo  warranto  was  issued  out  of  the  Court 
of  King's  Bench  against  the  colony.  The  agents, 
refusing  to  defend  the  suit,  returned  to  New  Eng- 
land, and  the  writ  was  given  to  Randolph  to  serve. 
He  reached  Boston  in  October,  but  owing  to  de- 
lays in  the  colony  and  a  tempestuous  voyage 
back,  he  was  unable  to  return  it  to  England 
within  the  allotted  time.  The  first  attempt  failed, 
but  another  was  soon  made.  By  the  advice  of  the 
Attorney-General,  suit  was  brought  in  the  Court 
of  Chancery  by  writ  of  scire  facias  against  the 
company,  and  upon  the  rendering  of  judgment 
for  non-appearance  the  charter  wag  declared  for- 
feited on  October  23,  1684. 

'Though  the  colony  was  given  no  opportunity 
to  defend  the  suit,  the  charter  was  legally  vacated 
according  to  the  forms  of  English  law.  The  colony 
was  but  a  corporation,  its  charter  but  a  corporation 
charter,  and  in  only  one  respect  did  it  differ  from 
other  corporations,  namely,  its  residence  in  Amer- 
ica. The  methods  of  vacating  corporate  charters 
in  England  were  definite  and  in  this  case  were 
strictly  followed.  Had  Massachusetts  been  a  cor- 
poration in  fact  as  well  as  in  law,  it  is  doubtful 
if  the  question  of  illegality  would  ever  have  been 


164    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

raised;  but  as  this  particular  corporation  was  a 
Puritan  commonwealth,  the  issue  was  so  vital 
to  its  continuance  as  to  lead  to  the  charge  of  un- 
just and  illegal  oppression.  On  moral  grounds 
a  defence  of  the  colony  is  always  possible,  though 
it  is  diflScult  to  uphold  the  Massachusetts  system. 
It  was  certainly  neither  popular  nor  democratic, 
tolerant  nor  progressive,  and  in  any  case  it  must 
eventually  have  undergone  transformation  from 
within.  The  city  of  Boston  was  increasing  in; 
wealth  and  importance,  and  trade  was  bringing 
it  into  ever  closer  contact  with  the  outside  world. 
There  were  growing  up  in  the  colony  more  open- 
minded  and  progressive  men  who  were  opposing 
the  dominance  of  the  country  party,  which  found 
its  last  governor  in  Leverett,  its  chief  advocates 
among  the  clergy,  and  its  strength  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  and  which  wished  to  preserve 
things  as  they  always  had  been.  The  leaders  of 
this  conservative  party,  Danforth,  Nowell,  Cooke, 
and  others,  struggled  courageously  against  all 
concessions,  but  they  were  bound  to  be  beaten  in 
the  end. 

That  the  conservative  members  of  the  colony 
were  thoroughly  in  earnest  and  thoroughly  con- 
vinced of  the  absolute  righteousness  of  their  posi- 


THE  BAY  COLONY  DISCIPLINED  165 

tion,  admits  of  no  doubt.  No  man  could  speak 
of  the  loss  of  the  charter  as  a  breach  in  the  "Hedge 
which  kept  us  from  the  Wild  Beasts  of  the  Field/' 
as  did  Cotton  Mather,  without  expressing  a  fear 
of  a  Stuart,  of  an  Anglican,  and  of  a  Papist  that 
was  as  real  as  the  terrors  of  witchcraft.  To  the 
orthodox  Puritans,  the  preservation  of  their 
religious  doctrines  and  government  and  the 
maintenance  of  their  moral  and  social  standards 
were  a  duty  to  God,  and  to  admit  change  was  a 
sin  against  the  divine  command.  But  such  an 
unyielding  system  could  not  last;  in  fact,  it 
was  already  giving  way.  Though  conjecture  is 
difficult,  it  seems  likely  that  the  English  inter- 
ference delayed  rather  than  hastened  the  natural 
growth  and  transformation  of  the  colony,  because 
it  united  moderates  and  irreconcilables  against 
a  common  enemy  —  the  authority  of  the  Crown. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  ANDROS  REGIME  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 

Without  a  charter  Massachusetts  stood  bereft 
of  her  privileges  and  at  the  mercy  of  the  royal 
will.  She  was  now  a  royal  colony,  immediately 
under  the  control  of  the  Crown  and  likely  to  re- 
ceive a  royal  governor  and  a  royal  administration, 
as  had  other  royal  colonies.  But  the  actual  form 
that  reconstruction  took  in  New  England  was 
peculiar  and  rendered  the  conditions  there  unlike 
those  in  any  other  royal  colony  in  America.  The 
territory  was  enlarged  by  including  New  Hamp- 
shire, which  was  already  in  the  King's  hands,  Ply- 
mouth, which  was  at  the  King's  mercy  because  it 
had  no  charter,  Maine,  and  the  Narragansett  coun- 
try. Eventually  there  were  added  Connecticut, 
Rhode  Island,  New  York,  and  the  Jerseys  —  eight 
colonies  in  all,  a  veritable  British  dominion  beyond 
the  seas.  For  its  Governor,  Colonel  Percy  Kirke, 
recently  returned  from  Tangier,  was  considered, 

166 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME  167 

but  Randolph,  whose  advice  was  asked,  knowing 
that  a  man  like  Kirke,  "short-tempered,  rough- 
spoken,  and  dissolute,"  would  not  succeed,  urged 
that  his  name  be  withdrawn.  It  was  agreed  that 
the  Governor  should  have  a  council,  and  at  first 
the  Lords  of  Trade  recommended  a  popular 
assembly,  whenever  the  Governor  saw  fit;  but  in 
this  important  particular  they  were  overborne  by 
the  Crown.  After  debate  in  a  cabinet  council,  it 
was  determined  "not  to  subject  the  Governor 
and  council  to  convoke  general  assemblies  of  the 
people,  for  the  purpose  of  laying  on  taxes  and 
regulating  other  matters  of  importance."  This 
unfortunate  decision  was  a  characteristic  Stuart 
blunder  for  which  the  Duke  of  York  (afterwards 
James  II),  Lord  Jeffreys  (not  yet  Lord  Chancellor), 
and  other  ministers  were  responsible.  Kirke, 
Jeffreys,  and  the  Duke  of  York  may  well  have 
seemed  to  Cotton  Mather  "  Wild  Beasts  of  the 
Field,"  dangerous  to  be  entrusted  with  the  shaping 
of  the  affairs  of  a  Puritan  commonwealth. 
^  The  death  of  Charles  II  in  February,  1685, 
postponed  action  in  England,  and  in  Massachu- 
setts the  government  went  on  as  usual,  the  elec- 
tions taking  place  and  deputies  meeting,  though 
with  manifest  half-heartedness.    Randolph  was 


168    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

able  to  prevent  the  sending  of  Kirke,  and  finally 
succeeded  in  persuading  the  authorities  that  it 
would  be  a  good  plan  to  set  up  a  temporary  govern- 
ment, while  they  were  making  up  their  minds 
whom  to  appoint  as  a  permanent  governor- 
general  of  the  new  dominion.  He  obtained  a 
commission  as  President  for  Joseph  Dudley,  son 
of  the  former  Governor,  an  ambitious  man,  with 
little  sympathy  for  the  old  faction  and  friendly 
to  the  idea  of  broadening  the  life  of  the  colony 
by  fostering  closer  relations  with  England.  Ran- 
dolph himself  received  an  appointment  as  register 
and  secretary  of  the  colony,  and  for  once  in  his 
life  seemed  riding  to  fortune  on  the  high  tide  of 
prosperity.  In  1685,  he  obtained  nearly  £500 
for  his  services  and  for  his  losses  up  to  that  date; 
and  when  the  following  January  he  started  on  his 
fifth  voyage  to  New  England,  he  bore  with  him 
not  only  the  judgment  against  the  charter,  the 
commission  to  Dudley  as  President,  and  two  writs 
of  quo  warranto  against  Connecticut  and  Rhode 
Island,  but  also  a  sheaf  of  oflBces  for  himself  — •  sec- 
retary, postmaster,  collector  of  customs.  He  wasj 
later  to  become  deputy-auditor  and  surveyor  of^ 
the  woods.  With  him  went  also  the  Reverend 
Robert  RatcliflFe,  rector  of  the  first  Anglican  church 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME  169 

set  up  in  Boston.  Just  a  week  after  the  arrival  of 
B^dolph  and  Ratcliffe  in  Boston,  the  old  assem- 
bly met  for  the  last  time,  and  on  May  21,  1686, 
voted  its  adjournment  with  the  pious  hope,  des- 
tined to  be  unfulfilled,  that  it  would  meet  again 
the  following  October.  The  Massachusetts  lead- 
ers seem  almost  to  have  believed  in  a  miraculous 
intervention  of  Providence  to  thwart  the  pur- 
poses of  their  enemy. 

The  preliminary  government  lasted  but  six 
months  and  altered  the  life  of  the  people  but  little. 
For  "Governor  and  Company"  was  substituted 
President  and  Council,''  a  more  modish  name, 
as  some  one  said,  but  not  necessarily  one  that 
savored  of  despotism.  But  however  conciliatory 
Dudley  might  wish  to  be,  his  acceptance  of  a  royal 
commission  rankled  in  the  minds  of  his  country- 
men; and  his  ability,  his  friendly  policy,  his  desire 
to  leave  things  pretty  much  as  they  had  been, 
counted  for  nothing  because  of  his  compact  with 
the  enemy.  In  the  opinion  of  the  old  guard,  he 
had  forsaken  his  birthright  and  had  turned  traitor 
to  the  land  of  his  origin.  Time  has  modified  this 
judgment  and  has  shown  that,  however  unlovely 
Dudley  was  in  personal  character  and  however 
lacking  he  was  at  all  times  in  self-control,  he  was 


170    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

an  able  administrator,  of  a  type  common  enough 
in  other  colonies,  particularly  in  the  next  century, 
serving  both  colony  and  mother  country  alike 
and  linking  the  two  in  a  common  bond.  Under 
him  and  his  council  Massachusetts  suffered  no 
hardships.  He  confirmed  all  existing  arrange- 
ments regarding  land,  taxes,  and  town  organiza- 
tion, and,  knowing  Massachusetts  and  the  temper 
of  her  people  as  well  as  he  did,  he  took  pains  to 
write  to  the  King  that  it  would  be  helpful  to  all 
concerned  if  the  Government  could  have  a  repre- 
sentative assembly.  To  grant  the  people  a  share 
in  government  would,  he  believed,  appease  dis- 
content on  one  side  and  help  to  fill  an  empty 
treasury  on  the  other;  but  nothing  came  of  his 
suggestion. 

Throughout  New  England  as  a  whole,  the  daily 
routine  of  life  was  pursued  without  regard  to 
7  the  particular  form  of  government  established  in 
Boston.  In  Massachusetts  the  election  of  depu- 
ties stopped,  but  in  other  respects  the  town  meet- 
ings carried  on  their  usual  business.  In  other 
colonies  no  changes  whatever  took  place.  Men 
tilled  the  soil,  went  to  church,  gathered  in  town 
meetings,  and  ordered  their  ordinary  affairs  as  they 
had  done  for  half  a  century.    The  seaports  felt 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME  171 

the  change  more  than  did  the  inland  towns,  for 
the  enforcement  of  the  navigation  acts  interfered 
somewhat  with  the  old  channels  of  trade  and  led 
to  the  introduction  of  a  court  of  vice-admiralty 
which  Dudley  held  for  the  first  time  in  July  to 
try  ships  engaged  in  illicit  trade.  Over  the  forts 
and  the  royal  offices  fluttered  a  new  flag,  bearing 
a  St.  George's  cross  on  a  white  field,  with  the 
initials  J.  R.  and  a  crown  embroidered  in  gold  in 
the  center  of  the  cross,  that  same  cross  which 
Endecott  had  cut  from  the  flag  half  a  century 
before.  To  many  the  new  flag  was  the  symbol  of 
anti-Christ,  and  Cotton  Mather  judged  it  a  sin 
to  have  the  cross  restored;  but  others  felt  with 
Sewall,  the  diarist,  who  said  of  the  fall  of  the 
old  government:  *'The  foundations  being  de- 
stroyed, what  can  the  righteous  do.'^" 

Perhaps  the  greatest  innovation  —  in  any  case, 
the  novelty  that  aroused  the  largest  amount  of 
curiosity  and  excitement  —  was  the  service  accord- 
ing to  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  held  at  first 
in  the  library  room  of  the  Town  House,  and  after- 
wards by  arrangement  in  the  South  Church,  and 
conducted  by  the  Reverend  Robert  Ratcliffe  in 
a  surplice,  before  a  congregation  composed  not  only 
of  professed  Anglicans  but  also  of  many  men  of 


172    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Boston  who  had  never  before  seen  the  Church  of 
England  form  of  worship.  The  Anglican  rector, 
by  his  somewhat  unfortunate  habit  of  running 
over  the  time  allowance  and  keeping  the  waiting 
Congregationalists  from  entering  their  own  church 
for  the  enjoyment  of  their  own  form  of  wor- 
ship, caused  almost  as  much  discontent  as  did  the 
dancing-master  of  whom  the  ministers  had  com- 
plained the  year  before,  who  set  his  appointments 
on  Lecture  days  and  declared  that  by  one  play  he 
could  teach  more  divinity  than  Mr.  Willard  or 
the  Old  Testament.  Other  "provoking  evils'* 
show  that  not  all  the  breaches  in  the  walls  were 
due  to  outside  attacks.  A  list  of  twelve  such 
evils  was  drawn  up  in  1675,  and  the  crimes  which 
were  condemned,  and  which  were  said  to  be  com- 
mitted chiefly  by  the  younger  sort,  included  im- 
modest wearing  of  the  hair  by  men,  strange  new 
fashions  of  dress,  want  of  reverence  at  worship, 
profane  cursing,  tippling,  breaking  the  Sabbath, 
idleness,  overcharges  by  the  merchants,  and  the 
loose  and  sinful  habit  of  riding  from  town  to 
town,  men  and  women  together,  under  pretence  of 
going  to  lectures,  but  really  to  drink  and  revel 
in  taverns."  The  law  forbidding  the  keeping 
of  Christmas  Day  had  to  be  repealed  in  1681. 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME  173 

Mrs.  Randolph,  when  attending  Mr.  Willard's 
preaching  at  the  South  Church,  was  observed  ''to 
make  a  curtsey'*  at  the  name  of  Jesus  ''even  in 
prayer  time";  and  the  colony  was  threatened  with 
"gynecandrical  or  that  which  is  commonly  called 
Mixt  or  Promiscuous  Dancing,"  and  with  marriage 
according  to  the  form  of  the  Established  Church. 
The  old  order  was  changing,  but  not  without  pro- 
ducing friction  and  bitterness  of  spirit.  The  or- 
thodox brethren  stigmatized  Ratcliffe  as  "BaaFs 
priest,"  and  the  ministers  from  their  pulpits  de- 
nounced the  Anglican  prayers  as  "leeks,  garlick, 
and  trash."  The  upholders  of  the  covenant  were 
convinced  that  already  "  the  Wild  Beasts  of  the 
Field"  were  assailing  the  colony. 

Randolph  journeyed  on  horseback  twice  to 
Rhode  Island,  and  once  to  Connecticut,  serving 
his  writs  upon  those  colonies.  Rhode  Island 
agreed  willingly  enough  to  surrender  her  charter 
without  a  suit,  but  the  authorities  of  Connec- 
ticut, knowing  that  the  time  for  the  return  of 
the  writ  had  expired,  gave  no  answer,  debating 
among  themselves  whether  it  would  not  be  better, 
if  they  had  to  give  in,  to  join  New  York  rather 
than  Massachusetts.  Randolph  attributed  their 
hesitation  to  their  dislike  of  Dudley,  for  whom  he 


174    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

had  begun  to  entertain  an  intense  aversion.  He 
charged  Dudley  with  connivance  against  himself, 
interference  with  his  work,  appropriation  of  his 
fees,  and  too  great  friendliness  toward  the  old 
faction  in  Boston.  Before  the  provisional  govern- 
ment had  come  to  an  end,  he  was  writing  home  that 
Dudley  was  a  false  president,"  conducting 
affairs  in  his  private  interest,  a  lukewarm  sup- 
porter of  the  Anglican  church,  a  backslider  from 
his  Majesty's  service,  turning  "windmill-like 
to  every  gale."  Such  was  Dudley's  fate  in  an 
era  of  transition  —  hated  by  the  old  faction  as  an 
appointee  of  the  Stuarts  and  by  Randolph  as  a 
weak  servant  of  the  Crown.  Writing  in  Novem- 
ber, Randolph  longed  for  the  coming  of  the  real 
governor,  who  would  put  a  check  upon  the 
country  party  and  bring  to  an  end  the  time- 
serving and  trimming  of  a  president  whom  he 
deemed  no  better  than  a  Puritan  governor. 

;  The  new  Governor-General,  who  entered  Boston 
harbor  in  the  Kingfisher  on  December  19,  1686, 
was  Sir  Edmund  Andros,  a  few  years  before  the 
Duke  of  York's  Governor  for  the  propriety  of 
New  York.  Andros  at  this  time  was  forty-nine 
years  old;  he  was  a  soldier  by  training  and  a  man 
of  considerable  experience  in  positions  requiring 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME  175 

executive  ability.  His  career  had  been  an  honor- 
able one,  and  no  charges  involving  his  honesty, 
loyalty,  or  personal  conduct  had  ever  been  entered 
against  him.  When  he  was  in  New  York,  he  had 
been  brought  on  several  occasions  into  contact  with 
the  Massachusetts  leaders,  and  though  their  rela- 
tions had  never  been  sympathetic,  they  had  not 
been  unfriendly.  While  in  England  from  1681 
to  1686,  he  had  been  freely  consulted  regarding 
the  best  method  of  dealing  with  the  problems  in 
America  and  had  shown  himself  in  full  accord 
with  that  policy  of  the  Lords  of  Trade  which  at- 
tempted to  consolidate  the  northern  colonies  into 
a  single  government  for  the  execution  of  the  acts 
of  trade  and  defense  against  the  encroachments 
of  the  French  and  Indians.  He  was  probably 
fully  aware  of  the  difficulties  that  confronted  the 
new  experiment,  but  as  a  soldier  he  was  ready  to 
obey  orders.  His  natural  disposition  and  mili- 
tary training  rendered  him  impatient  of  obstacles, 
and  his  unfamiliarity  with  any  form  of  popular 
government  —  for  New  York  had  been  controlled 
by  a  governor  and  council  only  —  made  extremely 
uncertain  his  success  in  New  England,  where 
affairs  had  been  managed  by  the  easy-going, 
dilatory  method  of  debate  and  discussion.    As  a 


176    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

disciplinarian,  he  could  not  appreciate  the  New 
Englander's  fondness  for  disputation  and  argu- 
ment; as  a  soldier,  he  was  certain  to  obey  to  the 
full  the  letter  of  his  instructions;  and,  as  an  An- 
glican, he  was  likely  to  favor  the  church  and  church- 
men of  his  choice.  He  was  not  a  diplomat,  nor  was 
he  gifted  with  the  silver  tongue  of  oratory  or  the 
spirit  of  compromise.  He  came  to  New  England 
to  execute  a  definite  plan,  and  he  was  given  no 
discretion  as  to  the  form  of  government  he  was 
to  set  up.  He  and  his  advisory  council  were  to 
make  the  laws,  levy  taxes,  exercise  justice,  and 
command  the  militia.  He  was  not  allowed  to 
call  a  popular  assembly  or  to  recognize  in  any  way 
the  highly  prized  institutions  of  the  colony. 

On  December  20,  Andros,  his  officers,  and  guard, 
clad  in  the  brilliant  uniforms  of  soldiers  of  the 
British  establishment,  landed  at  Leverett^s  wharf 
and  marched  through  the  local  militia  up  King's 
Street  to  the  Town  House,  where  he  read  his 
commission  and  administered  the  oaths.  Except 
for  the  royal  commissioners  of  1664,  no  British 
officer  or  soldier  had  hitherto  set  foot  on  the  streets 
of  Boston.  Redcoats  had  been  sent  to  New  York 
and  Virginia,  but  never  before  had  they  appeared 
in  New  England,  and  this  visible  sign  of  British 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME  177 

authority  must  have  seemed  to  many  ominous  for 
the  future. 

Andros's  early  impressions  of  what  he  saw  were 
not  flattering  to  the  colony.  He  found  the  people 
still  suffering  from  the  devastating  effects  of  the 
late  war  and  further  harassed  by  bad  harvests, 
disasters  at  sea,  and  two  serious  fires  which  had 
recently  done  much  damage  in  the  city.  He  found 
the  fortifications  in  bad  repair,  almost  all  the  gun- 
carriages  unserviceable,  no  magazines  of  powder 
or  other  stores  of  war,  no  small  arms,  except  a 
few  old  matchlocks,  and  those  unsizable  and  in 
poor  condition,  no  storehouses  or  accommodations 
for  officers  or  soldiers,  and  no  adequate  ramparts 
or  redoubts. 

Now  the  work  that  Andros  had  come  over  to 
perform,  and  that  which  was  most  important  in  his 
eyes,  was  the  defense  of  New  England  against  the 
French.  The  contest  between  the  two  nations 
for  control  of  the  New  World  had  already  begun. 
The  territory  between  Hudson  Bay  and  the  St. 
Lawrence  and  that  between  the  Penobscot  and 
the  St.  Croix  were  already  in  dispute,  and  New 
Englanders  had  taken  their  part  in  the  conflict. 
When  Governor  of  New  York,  Andros  had  become 
aware  of  the  French  danger,  and  his  successor 

12 


178    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Dongan  had  proved  himself  capable  of  holding  the 
Iroquois  Indians  to  their  allegiance  to  the  English 
and  of  extending  the  beaver  trade  in  the  Mohawk 
Valley.  But  at  this  juncture  reports  kept  coming 
in  of  renewed  incursions  of  the  French,  led  by 
the  Canadian  nobility,  into  the  regions  south  of 
Lakes  Erie  and  Ontario,  and  of  new  forts  on 
territory  that  the  English  claimed  as  their  own. 
[^here  was  increasing  danger  that  the  French 
would  embroil  the  Indians  of  the  Five  Nations 
and,  by  drawing  them  into  a  French  alliance, 
threaten  not  only  the  fur  trade  but  the  colonies 
themselves.  The  French  Governor,  Denonville, 
declared  that  the  design  of  the  King  his  master 
was  the  conversion  of  the  infidels  and  the  uniting 
of  "all  these  barbarous  people  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Church";  but  Dongan,  though  himself  a  Roman 
Catholic,  saw  no  truth  in  this  explanation  and 
demanded  that  the  French  demolish  their  forts 
and  retire  to  Canada,  whence  they  had  come. 
Just  as  this  quarrel  with  the  French  threatened 
to  arouse  the  Indians  in  northwestern  New  York, 
so  it  threatened  to  arouse,  as  eventually  it  did 
arouse,  the  Indians  along  the  northern  frontier 
of  New  England.  To  the  authorities  in  England 
and  to  Andros  in  America,  this  menace  of  French 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME  179 

aggression  was  one  of  the  dangers  which  the 
Dominion  of  New  England  was  intended  to  meet, 
and  the  substitution  of  a  single  civil  and  military 
head  for  the  slow-moving  and  ineffective  popular 
assemblies  was  designed  to  make  possible  an 
energetic  military  campaign. 

Andros  had  no  sooner  organized  his  council  and 
got  his  government  into  running  order  than  he 
began  to  prosecute  measures  for  improving  the 
defenses  of  the  colony.  He  sent  soldiers  to  Pema- 
quid  to  occupy  and  strengthen  the  fort  there, 
and  himself  began  the  reconstruction  of  the  forti- 
fications of  Boston.  He  turned  his  attention  to 
Fort  Hill  at  the  lower  end  of  the  town,  erected 
a  palisaded  embankment  with  four  bastions,  a 
house  for  the  garrison,  and  a  place  for  a  battery; 
later  he  leveled  the  hill  on  Castle  Island  in  the 
harbor,  and  built  there  a  similar  palisade  and 
earthwork  and  barracks  for  the  soldiers.  He  took 
a  survey  of  military  stores,  made  application  to 
England  for  guns  and  ammunition,  endeavored  to 
put  the  train-bands  of  the  colony  in  as  good  shape 
as  possible,  and  in  1688  went  to  Pemaquid  to 
inspect  the  northern  defenses  as  far  as  the  Penob- 
scot. He  kept  in  close  touch  with  Governor 
Dongan,  and  promised  to  send  him,  as  rapidly 


180    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

as  he  could,  men  and  money  in  case  of  a  French 
invasion. 

(To  make  his  work  more  effective  he  took  steps 
to  bring  Connecticut  immediately  under  his  con- 
trol. Rhode  Island  had  already  submitted  and 
had  sent  its  members  to  sit  with  the  council  at 
Boston.  But  Connecticut  had  avoided  giving 
a  direct  answer,  although  a  third  writ  of  quo 
warranto  had  been  served  upon  her,  on  December 
28, 1686.  Consequently  Andros  wrote  to  the  recal- 
citrant colony,  saying  that  he  had  been  instructed 
to  receive  the  surrender  of  the  charter.  To  this 
letter,  the  Governor  and  magistrates  of  Connecti- 
cut replied  that  they  preferred  to  remain  as  they 
were,  but  that,  if  annexation  was  to  be  their  lot, 
they  would  be  willing  to  join  with  Massachusetts, 
their  old  neighbor  and  friend,  rather  than  with  New 
York.  Dongan,  perplexed  by  the  heavy  expenses 
involved  in  the  military  defense  of  his  colony  and 
wishing  to  have  the  use  of  additional  revenues, 
had  hoped  that  he  might  persuade  the  Connecti- 
cut Government  to  come  under  the  control  of 
New  York,  but  Connecticut  preferred  Massachu- 
setts and  had  stated  this  preference  in  her  letter. 
Andros  and  the  Lords  of  Trade  deemed  the  re- 
ply favorable,  although   in  fact  it  was  ingeni- 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME  181 

ously  noncommittal,  and  they  took  steps  to  com- 
plete the  annexation. 

On  receiving  a  special  letter  of  instructions  from 
the  King,  Andros  set  out  in  person  for  Hartford, 
accompanied  by  a  number  of  gentlemen,  two  trum- 
peters, and  a  guard  of  fifteen  or  twenty  redcoats, 
*'with  small  guns  and  short  lances  in  the  tops  of 
them."  He  journeyed  probably  by  way  of  Nor- 
wich, crossing  the  Connecticut  River  at  Wethers- 
field,  where  he  was  met  by  a  troop  of  sixty  cavalry 
and  escorted  to  Hartford.  There,  on  October 
31,  1687,  the  Governor,  magistrates,  and  militia 
awaited  his  coming.  Seated  in  the  Governor's 
chair  in  the  tavern  chamber  where  the  assembly 
was  accustomed  to  meet,  he  caused  his  commis- 
sion to  be  read,  declared  the  old  Government 
dissolved,  selected  two  of  those  present  as  members 
of  his  council,  and  the  next  day  appointed  the 
necessary  officials  for  the  colony.  Thence  he  went 
to  Fairfield,  New  Haven,  and  New  London,  commis- 
sioning justices  of  the  peace  for  those  counties  and 
organizing  the  customs  service.  No  resistance  was 
made  to  his  proceedings,  though  it  was  generally 
imderstood  in  the  colony  that  the  charter  itself 
had  been  spirited  away  and  hidden  in  the  hollow  of 
an  oak  tree,  henceforth  famous  as  the  Charter  Oak. 


182    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

Connecticut  and  the  other  colonies  became  for 
the  time  being  administrative  districts  of  the  larger 
dominion.  Their  assemblies  everywhere  ceased  to 
meet,  that  of  Rhode  Island  for  five  years.  Courts, 
provided  by  the  act  of  December,  1687,  were,  how- 
ever, generally  held.  The  superior  court  for  Con- 
necticut sat  four  times  in  1688  and  the  county 
courts,  quarter  sessions  and  common  pleas,  where 
appeared  the  newly  appointed  justices  of  the  peace, 
sat  for  Hartford  County,  the  one  ten  times  and 
the  other  thirteen  times  during  1688  and  1689. 
But  the  surviving  records  of  their  meetings  are 
few  and  references  to  their  work  very  rare.  The 
ordinary  business  of  everyday  life  was  carried  on 
by  the  towns  alone,  which  continued  their  usual 
activities  undisturbed.  In  Connecticut,  before 
Andros  arrived,  the  assembly  had  taken  the  pre- 
caution to  issue  formal  patents  of  land  to  the 
towns  and  to  grant  the  public  lands  of  the  colony 
to  Hartford  and  Windsor  to  prevent  their  falling 
into  the  hands  of  the  new  Government.  •  This 
act  may  at  the  time  have  seemed  a  wise  one,  but 
it  made  a  great  deal  of  trouble  afterwards. 

The  Dominion  of  New  England,  which  now 
extended  from  the  Penobscot  to  the  borders  of 
New  York,  was  organized  as  a  centralized  govern 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME 


183 


ment,  with  the  old  colonies  serving  as  counties  for 
administration  and  the  exercise  of  justice.  But 
as  plans  for  an  expedition  against  the  French 
began  to  mature,  it  became  evident  that,  if  the 
French  were  to  be  successfully  met,  a  further  ex- 
tension of  territory  was  necessary;  so  in  April, 
1688,  a  second  commission  was  issued  to  Andros, 
constituting  him  Governor  of  all  the  territory  from 
the  St.  Croix  River  to  the  fortieth  parallel,  and 
thus  adding  to  his  domain  New  York  and  the  Jer- 
seys. Delaware  and  Pennsylvania  were  except- 
ed by  special  royal  intervention.  Dongan  was 
recalled,  and  Francis  Nicholson  was  appointed 
lieutenant-governor  under  Andros,  with  his  res- 
idence in  New  York. 


J^hws  on  paper  Andros  was  Governor-General 
of  a  single  territory  running  from  the  Delaware 
River  and  the  northern  boundary  of  Pennsylvania 
northward  to  the  St.  Lawrence,  eastward  to  the 
St.  Croix,  and  westward  to  the  Pacific.  There 
was  an  attempt  here  to  reproduce,  in  size  and 
organization,  the  French  Dominion  of  Canada, 
but  the  likeness  was  only  in  appearance.  To 
organize  and  defend  his  territory,  Andros  had  two 
companies  of  British  regulars,  half  a  dozen  trained 
oflScers,  the  local  train-bands,  which  were  not  to 


184    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

be  depended  on  for  distant  service,  and  a  meager 
supply  of  guns  and  ammunition.  Instead  of  hav- 
ing under  him  a  body  of  colonials,  such  as  were  the 
belligerent  gentlemen  of  Canada,  who  were  eager 
to  take  part  in  raids  against  the  English  and  who 
led  their  savage  followers  with  the  craft  of  the 
redskin  and  the  intelligence  of  the  white  man,  he 
had  many  separate  groups  of  people.  Averse  to 
war  and  accustomed  to  govern  themselves,  most 
of  these  distrusted  him  and  wanted  to  be  rid  of 
him,  and  desired  only  the  restoration  of  their  old 
governments  without  regard  to  those  dangers 
which  they  were  fully  convinced  they  could  meet 
quite  as  well  themselves. 

/Though  Andros's  authority  stretched  over  such 
an  enormous  territory,  his  actual  government 
was  confined  to  Massachusetts  and  the  northern 
frontier.  He  paid  very  little  attention  to  Con- 
necticut, Plymouth,  and  Rhode  Island.  With  but 
two  or  three  exceptions,  the  meetings  of  his  council 
were  held  in  Boston;  the  laws  passed  affected  the 
people  of  that  colony;  and  the  complaints  against 
him  were  chiefly  of  Massachusetts  origin.  Massa;^ 
chusetts  was  his  real  enemy,  and  it  was  Massachu-^ 
setts  that  finally  overthrew  him.  Andros  was  a 
soldier  who  never  forgot  the  main  object  of  hia 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME  185 

mission,  and  it  is  hardly  surprising  that  he  showed 
neither  tact  nor  patience  in  his  dealings  with  a 
colony  that  did  little  else  but  check  and  thwart 
the  plans  that  had  been  entrusted  to  him  for 
execution.  The  people  of  Massachusetts  charged 
him  with  tyranny  and  despotism.  Their  leaders, 
many  of  whom  were  members  of  his  council, 
complained  of  the  council  proceedings,  which, 
they  said,  were  controlled  by  Andros  and  his 
favorites,  so  that  debate  was  curtailed,  objections 
were  overruled,  and  the  vote  of  the  majority 
was  ignored.  There  is  much  truth  in  the  charge, 
for  Andros  was  self-willed,  imperious,  and  impa- 
tient of  discussion.  On  the  other  hand  the  Puritan 
leaders  inordinately  loved  controversy  and  debate. 
If  Andros  was  peremptory,  the  Puritan  councillors 
were  obstructive. 

A  more  legitimate  charge  was  the  absence  of  a 
representative  assembly  and  the  levying  of  taxes 
by  the  fiat  of  the  council.  But  Andros  had  no 
choice  in  this  matter:  he  was  compelled  to  govern 
according  to  his  instructions.  Not  only  was  his 
treasury  usually  empty,  but  he  was  always  con- 
fronted with  the  heavy  expense  of  fortification 
and  of  protecting  the  frontier.  He  does  not  ap- 
pear to  have  been  excessive  in  his  demands,  and  in 


186    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

case  of  any  unusual  levies,  as  of  duties  and  customs, 
he  referred  the  matter  to  the  Crown  for  its  consent. 
But,  as  Englishmen,  the  people  preferred  to  levy 
their  own  taxes  and  considered  any  other  method 
of  imposition  as  contrary  to  their  just  rights. 
Andros  consequently  had  a  great  deal  of  trouble  in 
raising  money.  Even  in  the  council,  tax  laws  were 
passed  with  diflBculty,  and  the  people  of  Essex 
County,  notably  in  town  meetings  at  Topsfield  and 
Ipswich,  protested  vigorously  against  the  levying 
of  a  rate  without  the  consent  of  an  assembly.  John 
Wise,  the  Ipswich  minister,  and  others  were  ar- 
rested and  thrown  into  jail,  and  on  trial  Wise,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  report  of  the  matter,  was  told 
by  Dudley,  the  chief -justice,  "You  have  no  more 
privileges  left  you  than  to  be  sold  as  slaves.'* 
Wise  was  fined  and  suspended  from  the  ministry, 
and  it  is  possible  that  his  recollection  of  events 
was  affected  by  the  punishment  imposed. 

In  the  matter  of  property,  land  titles,  quit- 
rents,  and  fees,  the  colonists  had  warrant  for  their 
criticism  and  their  displeasure.  Many  of  those 
whom  Andros  associated  with  himself  were  New 
Yorkers  who  had  served  with  considerable  suc- 
cess in  their  former  positions,  but  who  had  all 
the  characteristics  of  typical  royal  oflScials.  To 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME  187 

the  average  English  officeholder  of  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries,  office  was  considered  not 
merely  an  opportunity  for  service  but  also  an 
opportunity  for  profit.  Hitherto  Massachusetts 
had  been  free  from  men  of  this  class,  common 
enough  elsewhere  and  destined  to  become  more 
common  as  the  royal  colonies  increased  in  number. 
Palmer,  the  judge,  Graham,  the  attorney-general, 
and  West,  the  secretary,  hardly  deserve  the  stigma 
of  placemen,  for  they  possessed  ability  and  did 
their  duty  as  they  saw  it,  but  their  standards  of 
duty  were  different  from  those  held  in  Massachu- 
setts. People  in  England  did  not  at  this  time 
view  public  office  as  a  public  trust,  which  is  a 
modern  idea.  Appointments  under  the  Crown 
went  by  purchase  or  favor,  and,  once  obtained, 
were  a  source  of  income,  a  form  of  investment. 
Massachusetts  and  other  New  England  colonies 
were  far  ahead  of  their  time  in  giving  shape  to  the 
principle  that  a  public  official  was  the  servant  of 
those  who  elected  him,  but  to  such  men  as  Ran- 
dolph and  West  and  the  w^hole  office-holding 
world  of  this  period,  such  an  idea  was  unthinkable. 
They  served  the  King  and  for  their  service  were 
to  receive  their  reward,  and  such  men  in  America 
looked  on  fees  and  grants  of  land  as  legitimate 


188    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

perquisites.  In  New  York  they  had  been  able 
to  gratify  their  needs,  but  in  Massachusetts  such 
a  view  of  oflSce  ran  counter  to  the  traditions  and 
customs  of  the  place,  and  attempts  to  apply  it 
caused  resentment  and  indignation.  The  efforts 
of  these  men,  among  whom  Randolph  was  the 
prince  of  beggars,  to  obtain  grants  of  land,  to 
destroy  the  validity  of  existing  titles,  to  levy  quit- 
rents,  and  to  exact  heavy  fees,  were  a  menace  to 
the  prosperity  of  the  colony;  while  the  further 
attempt  to  destroy  the  political  importance  of 
the  towns  by  prohibiting  town  meetings,  except 
once  a  year,  was  an  attack  on  one  of  the  most 
fundamental  parts  of  the  whole  New  England 
system.  Andros  himself,  though  laboring  to  break 
the  resisting  power  of  the  colony,  never  used  his 
office  for  purposes  of  gain. 

That  the  Massachusetts  people  should  oppose 
these  attempts  to  alter  the  methods  of  govern- 
ment which  had  been  in  vogue  for  half  a  cen 
tury  was  inevitable,  though  some  of  the  means 
they  employed  were  certainly  disingenuous.  Their 
leaders,  both  lay  and  clerical,  were  unsurpassed 
in  genius  for  argument  and  at  this  time  outdid 
themselves.  When  Palmer  was  able  to  show  that, 
according  to  English  law,  their  land-titles  were 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME  189 

in  many  cases  defective,  they  fell  back  on  an  older 
title  than  that  of  the  Crown  and  derived  their 
right  from  God,  "according  to  his  Grand  Charter 
to  the  Sons  of  Adam  and  Noah."  More  culpable 
was  the  revival  of  the  unfortunate  habit  of  mis- 
representation and  calumny  which  had  too  often 
characterized  the  treatment  of  the  enemy  in 
Boston,  and  the  spreading  of  rumors  that  Andros, 
who  spent  a  part  of  the  winter  of  1688-1689  in 
Maine  taking  measures  for  defense,  was  in  league 
with  the  French  and  was  furnishing  the  Indians 
with  arms  and  ammunition  for  use  against  the 
English.  Such  reports  represent  perhaps  merely 
the  desperate  and  half-hysterical  methods  of  a 
people  who  did  not  know  where  to  turn  for 
the  protection  of  their  institutions.  A  wiser  and 
shrewder  move  was  made  in  the  spring  of  1688, 
when  a  group  of  prominent  men  determined  to 
appeal  to  England  for  relief  and  sent  Increase 
Mather,  the  influential  pastor  of  the  old  North 
Church,  across  the  ocean  to  plead  their  cause  with 
the  Crown. 

But  relief  was  nearer  than  they  expected.  On 
November  5,  1688,  William  of  Orange,  summoned 
from  Holland  to  uphold  the  constitutional  liber- 
ties of  Protestant  England,  landed  at  Torbay,  and 


190    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

before  the  end  of  the  year  James  II  had  fled  to 
France.  Rumors  of  the  projected  invasion  had 
come  to  Boston  as  early  as  December,  and  reports 
of  its  success  had  reached  the  ears  of  the  people 
there  during  the  March  following.  Finally  on 
April  4,  John  Winslow,  arriving  from  Nevis, 
brought  written  copies  of  the  Prince's  declara- 
tion, issued  from  Holland,  and  two  weeks  later, 
on  April  18,  the  leaders  in  the  city,  including  many- 
members  of  Andros's  council,  supported  by  the 
people  of  Boston  and  its  neighborhood,  rose  in 
revolt,  overthrew  the  government  of  Andros,  and 
brought  tumbling  down  the  whole  structure  of  the 
Dominion  of  New  England,  which  had  never  from 
the  beginning  had  any  real  or  stable  foundation. 
Having  armed  themselves,  they  seized  Captain 
George,  commander  of  the  royal  frigate,  the  RosCy 
lying  in  the  harbor,  as  he  came  ashore  to  find  out 
the  cause  of  the  noise  and  the  tumult.  Then  they 
moved  on  to  Fort  Hill,  where  Andros,  Randolph, 
and  others  had  taken  refuge.  Here  they  defied 
the  soldiers,  who  refused  to  fire,  captured  the  fort, 
and  carried  their  prisoners  off  to  be  lodged  in  private 
houses  or  the  common  jail.  On  the  following  day, 
they  forced  the  Castle  Island  fort  in  the  harbor 
to  surrender  and  then  imprisoned  its  commander; 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME  191 

they  demanded  of  the  lieutenant  in  charge  the  de- 
livery of  the  royal  frigate  and  carried  off  the  sails; 
and  as  nothing  would  satisfy  the  country  people 
who  came  armed  into  the  town  in  the  afternoon 
but  the  closer  confinement  of  Andros,  they  re- 
moved him  from  the  private  house  where  he  had 
been  lodged  to  the  fort  in  the  town.  So  excited 
was  the  populace  and  so  serious  the  danger  of  in- 
jury to  those  in  confinement,  that  West,  Palmer, 
and  Graham  were  sent  to  the  fort  on  Castle  Island 
for  protection;  Andros,  after  two  futile  attempts  at 
escape,  was  lodged  in  the  same  quarters,  while 
Randolph,  as  deserving  of  no  consideration,  was 
thrust  ignominiously  into  jail.  On  the  third  day 
a  council  of  safety,  consisting  of  thirty-seven 
members,  with  the  old  Governor,  Bradstreet, 
eighty-six  years  old,  at  its  head,  was  organized 
to  prepare  the  way  for  the  reestablishment  of  the 
former  Government.  The  council  summoned  a 
convention  which,  after  hesitation  and  delay, 
authorized  elections  for  a  House  of  Representa- 
tives and  the  resumption  of  all  the  old  forms  and 
powers.  On  June  6,  the  assembly  met,  and  to 
all  appearances  Massachusetts  was  once  more 
governing  herself  as  if  the  charter  had  never 
been  annulled. 


192    THE  FATHERS  OP  NEW  ENGLAND 

The  other  colonies  followed  the  example  of 
Massachusetts,  and  miniature  revolutions  took 
place  in  Plymouth,  Rhode  Island,  and  Connecti- 
cut, where  the  Andros  commissions  oflFered  few 
obstacles  to  the  renewal  of  the  old  forms.  In  a 
majority  of  cases  the  old  officials  were  at  hand, 
ready  to  take  up  their  former  duties.  Plymouth, 
having  no  charter,  simply  returned  to  her  old 
way  of  life,  precarious  and  uncertain  as  it  was; 
but  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut  took  the  posi- 
tion that  as  their  charters  had  not  been  vacated 
by  law,  they  were  still  valid  and  had  not  been 
impaired  by  the  brief  intermission  in  the  govern- 
ments provided  by  them.  In  this  opinion  the 
colonies  were  upheld  by  the  law  officers  in  England. 
/  Before  the  middle  of  the  summer,  practically  all 
traces  of  the  Andros  regime  had  disappeared, 
except  for  the  prisoners  in  confinement  at  Boston 
and  the  bitterness  which  still  rankled  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people  of  Massachusetts.  There 
was  no  such  intensity  of  feeling  in  the  other 
colonies,  where  the  loss  of  the  assembly  was  the 
main  grievance,  though  in  Connecticut  the  re- 
sumption of  authority  by  the  old  leaders  roused 
the  animosity  of  a  small  but  energetic  faction 
which  said  that  the  charter  was  dead  and  could 


THE  ANDROS  REGIME  193 

not  be  revived,  and  demanded  a  closer  dependence 
on  the  Crown.  Henceforth,  that  colony  had  to 
reckon  with  a  hostile  group  within  its  own  borders, 
one  that  deemed  the  institutions  and  laws  of  the 
colony  oppressive  and  unjust,  and  that  for  a  time 
resisted  the  authority  of  what  its  leaders  called  a 
"pretended"  government.  During  the  years  that 
followed,  these  men  made  many  eflForts  to  break 
down  the  independence  of  the  corporate  govern- 
ment, and  to  this  extent  the  rule  of  Andros  left 
a  permanent  mark  upon  the  colony. 

13 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  END  OF  AN  ERA 

But  the  future  of  the  New  England  colonies  was 
to  be  decided  in  England  and  not  in  America.  If 
the  orthodox  leaders  in  the  colony  thought  that 
the  new  King  had  levelling  sympathies  or  would 
thrust  aside  the  policy  already  adopted  by  the 
English  authorities  for  the  defense  of  the  colonies 
and  the  maintenance  of  the  acts  of  trade,  they 
greatly  misjudged  the  situation.  /  Ejng  William, 
though  a  Protestant,  was  no  lover  of  revolution, 
and,  though  he  had  himself  engaged  in  one,  he 
could  assert  the  dignity  of  the  prerogative  with 
as  much  vigor  as  any  Stuart.  He  was  not  a  poli- 
tician, but  a  soldier,  and  he  was  quite  as  likely  to 
see  the  necessity  of  organizing  New  England  for 
defense  against  the  enemy  as  he  was  to  listen 
favorably  to  appeals  from  Massachusetts  for  a 
restoration  of  her  charter. 

Increase  Mather  had  gone  to  England  in  1688 

194 


THE  END  OF  AN  ERA  195 

to  petition  James  II  for  relief  from  the  burdens  of 
the  Andros  rule.  His  impressive  personality,  his 
power  as  a  ready  and  forcible  speaker,  his  resource- 
fulness and  energy,  and  his  acquaintance  with 
influential  men  in  England,  both  Anglicans  and 
Dissenters,  made  him  the  most  effective  agent 
who  had  ever  gone  to  England  in  the  interest  of 
the  colony.  He  was  able  to  bring  the  grievances 
of  Massachusetts  to  the  personal  attention  of 
James  II;  and  he  had  received  hope  of  a  confirma- 
tion of  land  titles  and  permission  to  call  a  general 
assembly,  when  the  flight  of  the  King  brought  his 
efforts  to  naught.  He  then  turned  to  the  new 
Parliament,  hoping  to  save  the  colony  by  means 
of  a  rider  to  the  bill  for  restoring  corporations  to 
their  ancient  rights  and  privileges;  but  the  dis- 
solution of  this  body  ended  hopeful  efforts  in 
that  direction  also.  A  year's  *^  Sisyphean  labor 
came  to  nothing.  No  remedy  remained  except  an 
appeal  to  the  new  King,  and  during  1690  and  1691, 
the  reconstruction  of  Massachusetts  became  one 
of  the  most  important  questions  brought  before 
the  Lords  of  Trade.  William  III  and  his  advisers 
were  agreed  on  one  point:  that  Massachusetts 
should  never  again  be  independent  as  she  formerly 
had  been,  but  should  be  brought  within  the 


196    THE  FATHERS  OP  NEW  ENGLAND 

immediate  control  of  the  Crown,  through  a  gover- 
nor of  the  King's  appointment.  They  took  the 
ground  that,  with  a  French  war  already  begun,  it 
was  no  time  to  discuss  colonial  rights  and  privi- 
leges, for  the  demands  of  the  empire  took  prece- 
dence over  all  questions  of  a  merely  local  character 
in  America. 

Andros  was  now  recalled  and  instructions  were 
sent  to  Massachusetts  to  release  all  her  prisoners. 
With  their  arrival  in  England  in  February,  1690, 
the  debate  before  the  committee  went  on  in  a  new 
and  livelier  fashion.  Randolph  renewed  his  com- 
plaints in  every  form  known  to  his  inventive  mind; 
Andros  presented  his  defense  and  was  relieved 
of  all  charges  of  mal-administration;  Mather  and 
others  contested  every  move  of  their  opponents 
and  sought  to  obtain  as  favorable  terms  as  pos- 
sible for  Massachusetts;  while  Oakes  and  Cooke, 
sent  over  by  the  colony  as  its  official  agents  and 
representing  the  uncompromising  Puritan  wing, 
hindered  rather  than  helped  the  cause  by  insisting 
that  no  concessions  should  be  made  and  that 
Massachusetts  should  receive  a  confirmation  of 
all  her  former  privileges.  Mather's  success  was 
noteworthy.  He  could  not  prevent  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  royal  governor  or  the  separation  of 


THE  END  OF  AN  ERA  197 

New  Hampshire  from  Massachusetts,  nor  could  he 
obtain  the  right  of  coinage  for  the  colony;  but 
he  did  secure  the  permanent  annexation  of  Maine 
and  the  Plymouth  colony,  and  a  large  measure  of 
appointive  power  and  legislative  control  for  the 
people.  In  some  ways  most  significant  of  all,  he 
obtained  from  the  Crown  the  noteworthy  con- 
cession that  the  council  of  the  colony  should  be 
chosen  by  the  general  assembly  and  not  be  ap- 
pointed from  England,  as  was  the  case  with  all 
the  other  royal  colonies.  Even  New  Hampshire 
eventually  had  the  same  governor  as  Massachu- 
setts, thus  preserving  a  union  for  all  central  and 
northern  New  England,  which  was  destined  to 
last  for  forty-four  years. 

The  charter  of  1691  was  a  compromise  between 
the  old  government  which  had  existed  in  Massa- 
chusetts since  1630  and  that  of  a  regular  royal 
colony,  and  as  such  it  satisfied  neither  party.  It 
was  greeted  in  Massachusetts  with  vehement 
disapproval  by  the  old  faction,  who  charged 
Mather  with  flagrantly  deserting  his  trust;  and  in 
England  it  was  viewed  as  a  shameful  concession 
to  the  whims  of  the  Puritans.  This  yoking  to- 
gether of  parts  of  two  systems,  corporate  and 
royal,  was  to  give  rise  in  Massachusetts  in  the 


198    THE  FATHERS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

succeeding  century  to  a  struggle  for  control  that 
deeply  affected  the  course  of  the  colony's  later 
history. 

In  all  the  New  England  colonies,  the  fall  of 
Andros  and  the  close  of  the  century  marked  the 
end  of  an  era  in  which  the  dominant  impulse  was 
the  religious  purpose  that  actuated  the  original 
colonists  in  coming  to  America.    The  desire  for 
political  isolation  that  would  preserve  the  estab 
lished  religious  system  intact  was  exceedingly 
strong  in  the  seventeenth  century,  but  it  ceased 
to  be  as  strong  in  the  century  that  followed.  The 
fathers  gave  way  to  the  children;  the  settlements 
grew  rapidly  in  size,  increased  their  output  of  stapl 
products  beyond  what  they  needed  for  themselves 
and  became  vastly  interested  in  trade  and  com 
merce  with  all  parts  of  the  Atlantic  world.  Towns 
grew  into  larger  towns  and  cities;  and  Portsmouth 
Newbury,  Salem,  Marblehead,  Boston,  Newport 
New  London,  Hartford,  Wethersfield,  Middletown 
New  Haven,  Fairfield,  and  Stamford  became,  i 
varying  degrees,  centers  of  an  increasing  popula 
tion  and  of  new  business  interests  that  brough 
New  England  into  closer  contact  with  the  othe 
colonies,  with  the  West  Indies,  and  with  the  01 


THE  END  OF  AN  ERA  199 

World,  England  became  involved  in  the  long 
struggle  with  France  and  not  only  called  on  the 
colonies  to  aid  her  in  military  campaigns  against 
the  French  in  America,  but  endeavored  to  bring 
them  within  the  scope  of  her  colonial  empire.  All 
these  influences  tended  to  expand  the  life  of  New 
England  and  to  force  its  people  more  and  more  out 
of  their  isolation.  Yet,  despite  this  fact,  the  Puri- 
tan colonies — Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island  espe- 
cially—  continued  to  lie  in  large  part  outside  the 
pale  of  British  control  and  example,  and  their 
inhabitants  continued  to  accept  religion  and  the 
Puritan  standards  of  morals  as  the  guide  of  their 
daily  lives. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

The  standard  authority  on  the  subjects  treated  in 
the  volume  is  J.  G.  Palfrey,  History  of  New  Engcandy 
5  vols.  (1858-1864,  1875-1890),  a  work  of  broad  schol- 
arship and  written  in  a  not  uninteresting  style,  but 
indiscriminating  in  its  defense  of  Massachusetts  and 
without  any  understanding  of  the  purpose  and  attitude 
of  the  English  authorities.  In  somewhat  the  same 
class  are  G.  E.  Ellis,  The  Puritan  Age  (1888),  a  dry  book 
but  less  given  to  special  pleading,  and  Justin  Winsor, 
The  Memorial  History  of  Boston,  4  vols.  (1880-1882), 
a  series  of  essays  with  elaborate  notes  and  bibliographies, 
presenting  in  a  fragmentary  way  the  conventional  view 
of  the  period.  Less  frankly  favorable  to  New  England 
is  J.  A.  Doyle,  English  Colonies  in  America:  The  Puri- 
tan Colonies,  2  vols.  (1887),  a  work  of  value,  but 
diffuse  in  style  and  often  confused  in  treatment,  and, 
though  written  by  an  Englishman,  displaying  little  inter- 
est in  the  English  side  of  the  story.  The  chapters  in 
Edward  Channing,  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  i 
(1905),  that  relate  to  the  subject,  are  scholarly  and 
always  interesting;  while  those  in  H.  L.  Osgood,  The 
American  Colonies  in  the  Seventeenth  Century,  3  vols. 
(1904-1907),  contain  the  ablest  accounts  we  have  of 
the  institutional  characteristics  of  the  period. 

201 


202  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


There  are  few  good  histories  of  the  individual  colo- 
nies. Those  deserving  of  mention  are:  Thomas  Hutch- 
inson, History  of  Massachusetts  Bay^  2  vols.  (1764- 
1767);  S.  G.  Arnold,  History  of  the  State  of  Rhode  Island, 
2  vols.  (4th  ed.  1894);  Irving  B.  Richman,  Rhode  Island 
(1904,  American  Commonwealth  Series);  B.  Trum- 
bull, Complete  History  of  Connecticut,  2  vols,  (new  ed, 
1898);  A.  Johnson,  Connecticut  (2d  ed.  1903,  American 
Commonwealth  Series);  E.  Atwater,  History  of  the 
Colony  of  New  Haven  (1881) ;  W.  H.  Fry,  New  Hamp- 
shire as  a  Royal  Province  (1908);  W.  D.  Williamson, 
History  of  the  State  of  Maine  (1832);  H.  S.  Burrage, 
The  Beginnings  of  Colonial  Maine  (1914).  Hutchinson 
and  Trumbull  are  classics;  Arnold  is  one  of  the  best 
of  the  state  histories;  Richman  and  Johnson  are  short 
and  readable;  Fry  deals  with  the  institutional  life  of 
the  colony;  Williamson  is  old-fashioned  and  poor;  but 
Burrage  is  authoritative. 

Special  works  are:  H.  M.  Dexter,  The  England  and 
Holland  of  the  Pilgrims  (1905),  a  very  valuable  and 
learned  account;  C.  F.  Adams,  Three  Episodes  of  Mas^ 
sachusetts  History y  vols.  (1892),  treating  of  the  ante- 
cedents of  Boston,  the  Antinomian  Controversy,  and 
church  and  town  government,  the  first  essay  especially 
being  indispensable;  R.  M.  Jones,  The  Quakers  in  the 
American  Colonies  (1911),  the  fairest  account  of  the^ 
Quakers  in  New  England.  W.  De  L.  Love,  The  Colonial 
History  of  Hartford  (1914);  W.  E.  Weeden,  Early 
Rhode  Island  (1910);  and  G.  S.  Kimball,  Providence 
in  Colonial  Times  (1912),  are  in  every  way  excellent, 
that  of  Love  being  a  minutely  critical  analysis  of  the 
Connecticut  settlement.  W.  E.  Weeden,  Social  and 
Economic  History  of  New  England,  2  vols.  (1891),  is  a' 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  203 


^valuable  collection  of  information.  Certain  chapters 
in  Edward  Eggleston's  Transit  of  Civilization  (1901) 
treat  of  the  mental  outfit  of  the  colonists;  and  M.  W. 
Jernegan  in  the  School  Review,  June,  1915,  deals  with 
the  beginnings  of  public  education  in  New  England; 
G.  L.  Beer,  Origins  of  the  British  Colonial  System^  1660- 
1688,  2  vols.  (1912),  and  C.  M.  Andrews,  British 
Committees,  Commissions,  and  Councils  of  Trade  and 
Plantations,  1622-1675  (1908),  concern  British  policy 
and  administration  in  the  seventeenth  century. 

Biographies  varying  greatly  in  value  and  manner  of 
treatment  follow:  R.  C.  Winthrop,  Life  and  Letters  of 
John  Winthrop,  2  vols.  (2d  ed.  1869);  G.  L.  Walker. 
Thomas  Hooker  (1891,  Makers  of  America  Series); 
J.  H.  Twichell,  John  Winthrop  (1891,  id,);  A.  Steele, 
Elder  Brewster  (1857);  L.  G.  Jones,  Samuel  Gorton 
(1896);  A.  Gorton,  The  Life  and  Times  of  Samuel 
Gorton  (1907);  O.  S.  Straus,  Roger  Williams  (1894); 
M.  E.  Hall,  Roger  Williams  (1917) ;  T.  W.  Bicknell,  Story 
of  Dr.  John  Clarke  (1915);  J.  M.  Taylor,  Roger  Ludlow 
(1900);  J.  K.  Hosmer,  Young  Sir  Harry  Vane  (1888); 
A  Memoir  of  Sir  John  Leverett,  Knt.  (1856);  and  in 
American  Biography,  10  vols.,  are  lives  of  John  Mason 
by  G.  E.  Ellis,  Roger  Williams  by  William  Gammell, 
Samuel  Gorton  by  John  M.  Mackie,  and  Anne  Hutch- 
inson by  G.  E.  Ellis,  though  none  of  them  is  particu- 
larly satisfactory. 

The  original  sources  for  the  period  are:  the  Acts  of 
the  Privy  Council,  Colonial,  vols,  i,  ii  (1908-1910); 
The  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Colonial,  vols,  i-viii, 
1574-1692  (1860-1901);  and  the  colonial  records  of 
Plymouth,  Massachusetts  Bay,  Connecticut,  Rhode 
Island,  and  New  Hampshire.    Collections  of  narratives 


204  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


and  letters  may  be  found  in  the  publications  of  the 
Prince  Society  [C.  H.  Bell,  John  Wheelwright  and 
his  Writings  (1876);  C.  F.  Adams,  Morton's  New  Eng- 
land Canaan  (1883);  C.  W.  Tuttle,  Capt,  John  Mason 
(1887);  J.  P.  Baxter,  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges^  3  vols. 
(1890);  C.  F.  Adams,  Antinomianism  in  the  Colony  of 
Massachusetts  Bay  (1894) ;  R.  N.  Toppan,  Edward 
Randolph,  7  vols.  (1898-1909,  last  two  volumes  edited 
by  A.  T.  S.  Goodrick)];  and  in  the  Original  Narratives 
of  Early  American  History  [W.  T.  Davis,  Bradford's  \ 
History  of  Plymouth  Plantation  (1908);  J.  K.  Hosmer,  j 
Winthrop's  Journal,  2  vols.  (1908);  J.  F.  Jameson,' 
Johnson's  Wonder-Working  Providence  of  Sion's  Sav- 
iour in  New  England  (1911);  C.  H.  Lincoln,  Narratives 
of  the  Indian  Wars  (1913);  G.  L.  Burr,  Narratives  of 
the  Witchcraft  Cases  (1914);  C.  M.  Andrews,  Narratives 
of  the  Insurrections  (1915)].    A  sumptuous  edition  of 
Bradford's  history  has  been  edited  for  the  Massachu- 
setts Historical  Society,  by  W.  C.  Ford,  2  vols.  (1915).| 
S.  Sewall's  Diary,  3  vols.  (Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  ColL,  5th,i 
series,  1878-1882)  and  Cotton  Mather's  Magnalia^ 
2  vols.  (1853)  are  important.    W.  Walker,  The  Creeds 
and  Platforms  of  Congregationalism  (1893)  is  of  great 
value.    C.  W.  Sawyer,  Firearms  in  American  History 
(1910),  has  an  excellent  chapter  on  firearms  in  colonial 
times. 

The  articles  on  Boston,  New  England,  Massachusetts, 
Plymouth,  Friends  {Society  of),  etc., in  The  Encyclopcedia 
Britannica,  11th  Edition,  should  be  referred  to  for 
additional  bibliographies. 


INDEX 


Agawam  (Springfield),  61,  62 
Allerton,  Isaac,  17 
Ambrose,  The,  ship,  29 
Amsterdam,  Separatists  gather 
at,  7 

"Ancient  and  Honorable  Artil- 
lery," 135 

Andros,  Sir  Edmund,  takes 
part  in  case  against  Massachu- 
setts, 156;  Governor  of  Massa- 
chusetts, 174  et  seq.'y  strength- 
ens fortifications,  179-80; 
New  York  and  New  Jersey 
added  to  his  domain,  183-84; 
attention  confined  to  Massa- 
chusetts, 184-85;  recalled,  196 

Anne,  The,  ship,  13 

Aquidneck,  Island  of,  48,  55 

Arbella,  The,  ship,  29 

Aspinwall,  48 

Augsburg,  settlement  of  (1555), 
4 

Aulnay-Charnise,  Charles  de 
Menou,  Sieur  d',  95-96 

Bartlett,  Robert,  84 

Bay  Colony,  see  Massachusetts 

Bay  Colony 
Blackstone,  William,  23,  24 
Blessing  of  the  Bay,  The,  ship, 

78 

Boston,  Puritans  from  England 
settle  at,  29;  half  the  colonists 
live  in  or  near,  35;  treatment  of 
Quakers  in,  79-80;  importance 
of,  164;  grows  into  a  city, 
198;  see  also  Shawmut 

Bos  well.  Sir  William,  quoted,  97 


Bradford,  William,  in  Scrooby, 
7;  quoted,  15-16;  Governor  of 
Plymouth,  17;  History  of  Pli- 
mouth  Plantation,  19;  dead 
before  1660,  78 

Bradstreet,  Governor  of  Massa- 
chusetts, 191 

Bradstreet,  Simon,  103 

Branford,  (Conn.),  70 

Brenten,  Governor,  quoted,  114 

Brewster,  William,  father  of 
William,  elder  of  Plymouth,  6 

Brewster,  William,  Elder  of 
Plymouth,  6,  8 

Browne,  John,  41 

Browne,  Samuel,  41 

Bulkeley,  Peter,  156 

Cambridge  platform  (1648),  79 
Canonchet,   Indian  chief,  142, 

143  144 
Carr,  Sir  Robert,  119,  122 
Cartwright,    George,  Colonel, 

119,  122 

Carver,  John,  Governor  of  Ply- 
mouth, 13 
Charity,  The,  ship,  13 
Charlestown  (Mass.),  29,  35 
Charter  Oak,  181 
Child,  Dr.  Robert,  38,  116 
Church,  Benjamin,  Captain,  142 
Clarendon,  Lord,  Prime  Minister 
of  England,   113,   116,  117, 
120-21,  126 
Clark,  John,  of  Newbury,  83 
Clarke,  Dr.  John,  47,  48,  103, 

106,  112,  113 
Clayton,  Richard,  6 


206 


INDEX 


Coddington,  William,  43,  47, 
48,  49,  54-55 

Coggeshall,  one  of  founders  of 
Portsmouth,  48 

Connecticut,  leaders  who  in- 
fluenced, 47;  settled  by  Massa- 
chusetts people,  56;  four 
claimants  for,  57;  migration 
from  Massachusetts,  57-61; 
commission  government,  60- 
61;  government,  62-64;  witch- 
craft in,  81;  sends  petition  to 
England,  103-04;  charter 
granted  (1662),  108;  extends 
authority  of  colony,  108-10; 
claims  Long  Island,  130;  title 
under  charter  recognized  by 
Massachusetts,  131;  debates 
joining  New  York,  173;  An- 
dros  endeavors  to  bring  under 
control,  180;  consents  to  join 
Massachusetts,  180-82;  re- 
news old  forms,  192 

Cooke,  a  leader  of  conservatives 
in  Boston,  164 

Cotton,  John,  78 

Council  for  Foreign  Plantations, 
Committee  of  the,  34 

Danforth,  a  leader  of  conserva- 
tives in  Boston,  164 

Davenport,  John,  of  New  Haven, 
47,  67,  68,  78,  111,  112 

Deerfield  (Mass.)»  massacre  of, 
141 

Delfthaven,  Pilgrims  embark  at, 
10 

Denonville,  Marquis  de.  Gover- 
nor of  Canada,  178 
Denton,  Richard,  70 
Desborough,  78 

Dongan,  Colonel,  Governor  of 
New  York,  178,  180,  183 

Dorchester  (Mass.),  35 

Dover  (N.  II.),  65,  66 

Downing,  Emanuel,  35 

Dudley,  Joseph,  168,  169-70, 
173-74 

Dudley,  Thomas,  28 


Dyer,  Mary,  80 

Eaton,  Samuel,  67 
Eaton,  Theophilus,  47,  67,  68, 
69 

Education  in  New  England,  83- 

85 

Eliot,  John,  94 

Endecott,  John,  in  congregation 
of  Rev.  John  White,  24;  sent 
as  governor  to  Salem,  25;  dis- 
regards claims  of  Gorges,  26; 
defaces  royal  ensign  at  Salem, 
32;  banishes  colonists  for 
religious  differences,  41;  signs 
petition  to  England,  104 

England,  in  early  seventeenth 
century,  2  et  seq.;  awakes  to 
importance  of  colonies,  101- 
102;  new  colonial  policy,  102- 
103;  affairs  in  seventeenth 
century,  126-27;  attitude  to- 
ward Massachusetts,  150;  fi- 
nances under  Charles  II.,  151- 
152;  future  of  New  England 
decided  in,  194 

Exeter  (N.  H.),  65,  66 

Fairfield  (Conn.),  198 
Feudal  system  in  England,  2,  3 
Fortune,  The,  ship,  13  ] 
Fuller,  Dr.  Samuel,  37,  83 
Fundamental  orders,  62-64 

Gardiner,  Sir  Christopher,  31, 
41  j 
George,  Captain  of  the  Rose,  190 
Gilds,  3-4  1 
Goodyear,  Stephen,  77  ^ 
Gorges,  Sir  Ferdinando,  22-23;. 

25,  26,  29-30,  30-34,  65 
Gorges,  Robert,  23,  25 
Gorges,  Thomas,  35  i 
Gorton,  Samuel,  49-51 
Graham,    Attorney-General  al 

Massachusetts,  187,  191 
"Great  Fundamentals,  The,'*  19 
Greenwich  (Conn.),  109,  133  ' 
Guilford  (Conn.),  70,  109 


INDEX 


207 


Half-Way  Covenant,  79,  93-94 
Hampton  (N.  H.),  66 
Handmaid,  The,  ship,  13 
Hartford  (Conn.),  61,  198 
Harvard  College,  84,  93 
Hawkins,  Jane,  83 
Haynes,  John,  35,  47,  58,  78 
Higginson,  Francis,  37 
Hilton,  Edward,  65 
Holmes,  O.  W.,  quoted,  83 
Holmes,  William,  56 
Hooke,  78 

Hooker,  Thomas,  47,  58,  60,  61, 

62,  78 

Hopkins,  Edward,  Governor,  84 
House  of  Good  Hope,  56 
Humphrey,  John,  28 
Hutchinson,  Anne,  41-42,  48,  98 

Indians,  trouble  with,  133  et  seq.; 
dealings  with,  138-39;  num- 
ber in  New  England,  139 

Jewel,  The,  ship,  29 
Johnson,  Lady  Arabella,  35 
Johnson,  Isaac,  28 
Jones,  Christopher,  captain  of  the 
Mayflower,  11-12 

King  Philip's  War  (1675-76), 

136,  138,  139,  140-46 
Kingfisher,  The,  ship,  174 
Kirke,  Percy,  Colonel,  166-67 

Lathrop,  John,  67 

La  Tour,  Charles  de,  95-96 

Laud,  Archbishop,  32 
,   Laud  Commission,  34 

Leete,  Governor,  111 

Leyden,  Separatists  move  to,  7 
'   London,  as  a  center  of  Separa- 
tism, 6 

Long  Island,  uncertainty  as  to 
jurisdiction,  129-30 
i;  Ludlow,  Roger,  47,  58,  78,  98 
[!  Lynn,  Henry,  41 

I   Maine,  settled,  65;  under  juris- 
diction of  Massachusetts,  66- 


67;   status   undecided,  132; 
military    preparedness,  135; 
permanently     annexed  to 
Massachusetts,  197 
Marblehead  (Mass.),  198 
Mason,  John,  Captain,  30-31, 

34,  65,  136 
Massachusetts  Bay  Colony,  21 
et  seq.;  begins  as  fishing 
venture,  24;  obtains  patent 
for  land,  25;  founded,  29; 
Gorges  attempts  overthrow 
of,  30-34;  growth  (1630-40), 
34-36;  time  of  stress,  36; 
government,  37-40;  religious 
intolerance,  41-43;  commer- 
cial ventures,  78;  leader  among 
colonies,  100-01;  sends  peti- 
tion to  King,  103;  restoration 
of  Stuarts  causes  trouble  for, 
104-05;  charter  confirmed, 
105;  religious  liberty  defined 
by  King,  105-06;  inquiry  into 
afiFairs  by  Clarendon,  116-18; 
commissioners  sent  to,  118 
et  seq.;  franchise  law  modified, 
121;  defies  commission,  123- 
126;  recognizes  Connecticut's 
title  (1672),  131;  asserts  right 
to  control  Maine  and  New 
Hampshire,  132;  military  pre- 
paredness, 135;  Randolph  in- 
quires into  affairs,  147;  new 
instructions  to  royal  governors, 
148-49;  attitude  of  England 
toward,  148-52;  inquiry  by 
Randolph,  154-56;  mission 
sent  to  England,  156-57; 
purchases  title  to  Maine  and 
estranges    England  further, 

158-  59;  royal  orders  in  regard 
to  trade  and  religious  liberty, 

159-  60;  attitude  toward  Eng- 
land, 160-61;  sends  agents  to 
England,  162;  charter  for- 
feited (1684),  163;  grows 
more  liberal,  164;  territory 
enlarged,  16(5;  a  royal  colony, 
166  et  seq.;  preliminary  royal 


208 


INDEX 


Massachusetts  Bay  Colony-Con. 
government,  168-69;  changes 
in  life  of  people,  170-73; 
faults  in  royal  government, 
185-89;  government  of  An- 
dres overthrown,  190;  resumes 

[  self-government,  191;  sends 
Mather  to  England,  194-96; 
charter  of  1691,  197 

Massachusetts  Bay  Company, 
charter  gr-nted  (1629),  26; 
control  passes  to  Puritans,  27 

Massachusetts  Commission,  per- 
sonnel, 118-19;  object,  120- 
121;  failure,  123-26. 

Mather,  Cotton,  quoted,  79 

Mather,  Increase,  194-95,  196 

Maverick,  Samuel,  23,  38,  116 
et  seq, 

Mayflower,  The,  ship,  10,  11 
Mayflower  Compact,  12-13 
Merrymount,  22 
Middletown  (Conn.),  198 
Milford  (Conn.),  70 
Mishawum  (Charlestown),  24 
Moody,  Lady  Deborah,  35 
Morrell,  23 

Morton,  Thomas,  22,  31,  34,  41, 
47 

Mount  Wollaston,  22 
Mystic,  taken  into  Connecticut, 
109 

Naumkeag  (Salem),  25 

New  Amsterdam,  seized  by 
English,  110 

New  England,  people  of,  72-73; 
settled  by  radicals,  73-74;  lack 
of  toleration  in,  74;  town  life, 
75-76;  local  color  in  various 
settlements,  76-78;  witch- 
craft, 80-81;  superstitions  of 
people,  81-82;  medicine  and 
surgery,  82-83;  education,  83- 
85;  travel,  85-86;  homes,  86; 
money,  86-87;  reckoning  of 
time,  87;  respect  for  grants 
and  charters,  88;  attitude 
toward  England,  88-90;  or- 


ganization in,  89;  rivalry  with 
Dutch  and  French,  90-91; 
confederation  of  colonies,  91 
et  seq. ;  trouble  with  the  French, 
94-96;  trouble  with  the  Dutch, 
96-98;  period  of  readjustment, 
129  et  seq.;  Indian  troubles, 
133  et  seq,;  boundary  disputes, 
133;  population,  139;  menace 
from  French,  177-79;  Domin- 
ion of,  182-83;  brought  closer 
to  English  control,  199 
New  England  Canaan,  Morton, 
32 

New  England  Confederation  see 
United  Colonies  of  New 
England 

New  England  Council,  9,  12, 
22,  26,30,  32-33 

New  Hampshire,  influential 
leaders  in,  47;  controversy 
over  title,  65;  under  jurisdic- 
tion of  Massachusetts,  66-67; 
separation  from  Massachu- 
setts, 67,  71;  status  un- 
decided, 132;  military  pre- 
paredness, 135 

New  Haven,  influential  leaders 
in,  47;  settled,  67-68;  govern- 
ment, 68-70;  combines  other 
plantations  under  her,  70-71; 
absorbed  by  Conne,  71;  com- 
mercial ventures,  77-78;  witch- 
craft in,  81;  misfortunes  of, 
110-11;  surrenders  to  Con^ 
necticut,  1 11-12;  confederation 
dissolved,  112 

New  London  (Conn.),  198 

New  Netherlands,  conquest  of, 
122 

New  Somersetshire,  65  i 
Newark,  founded,  112 
Newbury,  198 
Newport  (R.  I.),  49,  198 
Nicholson,  Francis,  183 
Nicolls,  Richard,  118,  119,  122^ 
Norfolk,  a  center  of  Separatism, 
6 

Norton,  John,  103 


INDEX 


209 


Nowell,  a  leader  of  conservatives 
in  Boston,  164 

01dham»  John,  56 

Palmer,  Judge,  187,  191 
Partridge,  Captain,  54,  55 
Pawcatuck,  taken  into  Connecti- 
cut, 109 
Pequot  War  (1637),  136-37 
Peters,  Hugh,  59,  78 
Pierson,  Abraham,  46,  47,  112 
Pilgrims,    leave     for  Holland 
(1607-08),  7;  reasons  for  leav- 
ing Holland,  8;  decide  to  go  to 
America,  8-9;  conditions  under 
which  expedition  was  under- 
taken,   10;   journey   of  the 
Mayflower,   10-12;   draw  up 
covenant,  12;  life  in  Plymouth 
Colony,  14-19;  greatness  lies 
in    religious    influence,  19- 
20 

Plymouth  Colony,  founded,  12- 
20;  secures  right  to  establish 
fishing  colony,  24;  submits  to 
authority  of  Massachusetts, 
71;  fishing  and  trading,  77; 
witchcraft  in,  81;  sends  mis- 
sion to  England,  104;  military 
preparedness,  135;  renews  old 
forms,  192;  permanently  an- 
nexed to  Massachusetts,  197 
Plymouth,  town  of,  18 
Pocasset  (Portsmouth),  48 
Portsmouth  (N.  H.),  66.  198 
Portsmouth     (R.    I.),  51-52; 

see  also  Pocasset 
Protestantism,     controlled  by 
state,  4 

Providence,  settled,  47-48;  court 
of  arbitration  at,  51;  charter 
unites  with  other  settlements, 
53;  government  under  patent, 
53-54 

Puritans,  obtain  control  of 
Massachusetts  Bay  Company, 
27;  reach  Salem  (1630),  29; 
become  Separatists,  37;  char- 

14 


acteristics  of  the  frontier,  46- 
47 

Pynchon,  William,  60,  62,  77 

Quakers,  come  to  Boston  (1656), 

79;  treatment,  79-80 
Quinnipiac,  68 

Randolph,  Edward,  147,  152- 
156,  160,  161,  162,  163,  167, 
168.  173,  174,  196 

Ratcliffe,  Philip,  31,  41 

Ratcliffe,  Robert,  168-69,  171. 
173 

Reformation,  The,  3 

Rhode  Island,  leaders  in,  47; 
individualism  in,  56;  colony 
of  separr.tism,  79;  not  in- 
cluded in  Confederation  of 
colonies,  92;  applies  for  char- 
ter, 103;  conflicting  boundary 
claims,  113;  charter  granted, 
(1663),  113-14;  rival  claims 
to,  115;  unsettled  conditions, 
131;  surrenders  charter,  173; 
sends  council  members  to 
Boston,  180;  renews  old  forms, 
192 

Rhode  Island  settlements.  Pro- 
vidence, 47-48;  Pocasset,  48- 
49;  Newport,  49;  Shawomet  or 
Warwick,  49 

Robinson,  John,  6-7,  8 

Rossi ter.  Bray,  of  Guilford,  83, 
111 

Rowlandson,  Mrs.,  143 
Roxbury  (Mass.)»  35 

Salem  (Mass.)»  25,  198;  see  also 

Naumkeag 
Salem  witchcraft,  81 
Saltonstall,  Sir  Richard,  28,  35 
Saybrook,  33,  40 
Saye  and  Sele,  Lord,  33,  106-07 
Scott,  John,  Captain,  109,  130 
Scrooby,    Nottinghamshire,  a 

center  of  Separatism,  6 
Separatists,  5  et  seq. 
Setaukit,  130 


210 


INDEX 


Shawmut  (Boston),  23 

Shawomet,  49 

SheflSeld,  Lord,  24 

Slavery    forbidden    in  Rhode 

Island  (1652),  54 
Smith,  John,  3,  11 
Southold  on  Long  Island,  70, 109 
Speedwell,  The,  ship,  10 
Springfield     (Mass ),  becomes 

part  of  Mass.,  62;  center  of 

fur  trade,  77;  see  also  Agawam 
Stamford  (Conn.),  70,  109,  183, 

198^ 

Standish,  Miles,  3 
Stiles  party,  57 
Stone,  Samuel,  60 
Stoughton,  William,  156 
Stuyvesant,  Peter,  97,  109 

Talbot,  The,  ship,  29 

Uncas,  Indian  chief,  137 
Underbill,  47 

United  Colonies  of  New  Eng- 
land, 91 

Vane,  Henry,  33,  35, 40, 59 
Vassal!,  William,  38 
Virginia  Company  of  London,  9 
Virginia  Company  of  Plymouth, 
9 

Walford,  24,  41 

Warwick,  Earl  of,  25,  26,  28,  30, 

32 

Warwick,  a  Rhode  Island  settle- 
ment, 49 


Watertown  (Mass.),  35 
Wessagusset  (Quincy),  21, 22,  23 
West,  Secretary  of  Mass.,  187, 
191 

Weston,  Thomas,  10,  21 
Wethersfield  (Conn.),  61,  198 
Weymouth  (Mass.),  23 
Wheelwright,  John,  47,  65 
White,  Rev.  John,  24,  27 
Whitfield,  78 
Whiting,  78 

Williams,  Roger,  driven  from 
Boston,  47;  locates  at  Provi- 
dence, 47-48;  obtains  charter, 
52-53;  quoted,  54;  goes  to 
England  to  confirm  patent, 
55;  in  1660,  78 

Windsor  (Conn.),  61 

Winnissimmet  (Chelsea),  23-24 

Winslow,  Edward,  17,  38,  50,  52 

Winslow,  John,  190 

Winslow,  Josiah,  General,  142 

Wlnthrop,  John,  elected  Gover- 
nor of  Mass.  Bay  Colony,  28; 
leader  among  the  Puritans, 
35;  died  before  1660,  78 

Winthrop,  John,  son  of  the 
Governor,  40,  59,  83,  103-04, 
106-07 

Wise,  John,  186 

Witchcraft  in  New  England, 
80-81 

Wollaston,  Captain,  22 
Wright,  Richard,  41 

Young,  Alse,  81 
Young,  Captain,  130 


